If we want to solve the climate crisis, we must empower women — just ask the
United Nations and SB Brands for
Good, both of which have called it out as a top priority in creating a
flourishing future. Giving young women and girls an education and support in
family planning, and bolstering women-run
businesses
are fundamental to adapting to our changing planet and reversing global
environmental destruction.
Don’t take our word for it: Women’s empowerment as an effective climate
solution
was also highlighted by Paul Hawken’s climate-mitigation plan, Project Drawdown, dubbed “the most comprehensive
plan ever proposed to reverse global warming.” In it, he describes 100
solutions — ranking them in
order of their potential to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Alongside the usual
suspects — shifting to renewable
energy
and regenerative
agriculture,
and reducing food
waste
— are educating girls and family planning, ranked sixth and seventh,
respectively.
Of course, reducing population growth is good business for carbon reduction. But
the focus on women goes way beyond maintaining how many people we have on Planet
Earth. Today, universal education and sexual health understanding are severely
underfunded, particularly for women and girls in developing nations. And this
leaves them vulnerable — at heightened risk of violence and labor exploitation,
and more likely to suffer when climate-related weather events hit. By embracing
family planning, women have more control over their lives and can make better
decisions based on their needs and those of their families. According to Project
Drawdown, “dedicating climate adaptation financing to include girls’ education
and modern voluntary family planning as part of multisectoral climate adaptation
approaches would help ensure that those most vulnerable to climate change and
its impacts have access to basic human rights.”
On its launch in 2017, Drawdown’s spotlight on women resonated with many people
working in sustainability. For Rachel
Vestergaard, it was a
life-changing moment that reinforced what she’d been thinking for a long time:
“Until Drawdown, I was having a hard time finding compelling data. Drawdown just
validated what I already knew to be true,” she tells Sustainable
Brands®.
Scaling up empowerment efforts
This year, Vestergaard launched Empower Co., which
she hopes will provide a mechanism for scaling up global efforts to empower
women. The firm sells credits to companies that are committed to supporting
projects that bring about lasting positive change for women and
girls.
In return, the companies can be satisfied that their contribution has had the
desired impact because the outcomes are verified and measured by the W+
Standard. Each W+ unit represents a 10 percent
improvement in a woman’s life. And through Empower Co.’s profit-sharing model,
at least 50 percent of proceeds from the sale of W+ units go directly to women
engaged in the projects being supported.
Developed by Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture and Natural Resource
Management (WOCAN) in 2014, the W+ Standard is the
first globally recognized framework that measures and monetizes women’s
empowerment. Endorsed by the UNFCCC, UNREDD and the World Bank Climate
Funds Management Unit, among others, the Standard measures women’s empowerment
across six domains — including health, food security, and income and assets.
“The Standard was developed with women themselves, on the ground, to effectively
understand what real empowerment looks like,” Vestergaard says.
From Wall Street to Borneo
Back in the early 2010s, Vestergaard was on the verge of giving up her
successful career as a Wall Street trader. Unfulfilled by her work, she went
travelling and landed in the rainforests of Borneo, where she saw the
destruction of the environment firsthand: “I remember saying to my best friend
who I was hiking with that I was going to spend the rest of my life protecting
what was left of the natural world.”
On her return, she joined forces with the team at California-based
Wildlife Works and set about using the emerging marketplace for
REDD+ carbon offsets to protect forests, wildlife
and communities.
“Through that work, I got to see how meaningful development can happen. I also
saw that, every time women were involved in the decision-making or given a
leadership role, the community development side of our REDD+ projects tended to
be more successful and more sustainable,” she explains. “It was clear that women
were actually the key to sustaining climate projects; it was a real kind of flip
in my thinking. Once that happened, I knew that that was what needed to be
unlocked.”
The world is, quite rightly, caught up in the data, science and measurement of
carbon.
But Vestergaard has realized that the machine to sustain environmental
protection and carbon reduction centres around women.
Fast-forward to today, and Empower Co. is ready to engage with brands and
corporates keen to cement their women’s-empowerment programs with robust data.
“There’s a lot of pink-flag waving, but there’s no real sustenance to go with
that. Now, companies that have targets associated with UN SDG 5 or
13 can now understand the type of impact
that has occurred, where it has occurred, and with what group of women,” she
says excitedly.
A diverse range of projects to support
To kick off, Empower Co. will offer the chance to support three different
projects, each providing W+ credits. In Nepal, a biogas project is helping
communities switch to clean
cookstoves
— which, in addition to health benefits and carbon-reduction opportunities,
saves time for women, who no longer have to find wood for their fires. In
Kenya, it has a project focused on ensuring farmers are able to do more with
less.
“Deforestation is driven by very small-scale farming operations with people just
trying to feed their family. The project is not only about providing farmers
with education, but also giving them access to insurance. Now, women can insure
their crops — so, if a catastrophic event happens — whether it’s pest- or
climate-related — they can still survive and feed their families.”
Although buoyed by the potential of the W+ Standard to fuel women’s empowerment
through the selling of credits, Vestergaard is all too aware of the bad rap
that offsetting has
received
over the years: “Let’s be clear: Offsets are a neutralization tool. They don't
take away the negative impact of what an organization has already done.”
Instead, the world needs to move to providing a net-positive impact in the form
of an onset, she adds: “An onset is an entirely positive contribution to
community and climate. It’s a next level of engagement that’s emerging; an
opportunity for companies to get involved in projects that are more aligned with
outcomes that create net-positive impact.”
It's going to be a busy 12 months for Empower Co. as it strikes the right
balance in catering to both supply (supporting more projects) and demand
(attracting more clients). Vestergaard’s end goal is not simply to sell W+ units
forever but to see meaningful investment continue to flow into supporting women.
“I hope that within the next ten years, billions of dollars are being funnelled
into this type of work that is measurable and quantifiable — just as we’re
seeing with carbon.”
Get the latest insights, trends, and innovations to help position yourself at the forefront of sustainable business leadership—delivered straight to your inbox.
Content creator extraordinaire.
Tom is founder of storytelling strategy firm Narrative Matters — which helps organizations develop content that truly engages audiences around issues of global social, environmental and economic importance. He also provides strategic editorial insight and support to help organisations – from large corporates, to NGOs – build content strategies that focus on editorial that is accessible, shareable, intelligent and conversation-driving.
Published Sep 28, 2022 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST