Women and climate – bound together

In my last post I committed to you that I would start figuring out how to use the Sustainable Development Goals to design my investment strategy and set my own personal goals. Seems like a sensible framework to use and gives me no excuse not get started!

Empowering women, combatting climate change

Here’s the thing – the more I think about it and the more I research, the more I realize how these two goals are intrinsically linked. Both in terms of how this plays out over the coming years (who will be affected, who will suffer most) but also in how we solve the challenges we face (what solutions do we need, who will likely drive these). Given my passion for all of the above, I wanted to share with you some resources and thinking that I am using to inform my next steps.

What’s the link?

I kicked off my research by watching this fantastic TedX by Katharine Wilkinson – How empowering women and girls can stop global warming. Wilkinson runs through the link between the rise of global warming and the rise of women and girls, arguing (and I believe rightly so) that gender equality is a KEY answer to our planetary challenge. She talks about equity for women in agriculture, education and family planning – and it all makes perfect sense. Understanding the gender-climate connection can drive powerful solutions.

Just watching her tears at the end reminds me of my own fears and passion. She closes with simple but impactful words:

It is a magnificent thing to be alive in a moment that matters so much … We are life force, one earth, one chance. Let’s seize it.

Women as leaders

To me, a critical part of ‘seizing it’ must be getting more women into leadership positions – both in the political and the corporate sphere. I was delighted when Christine Lagarde (on whom admittedly I have a major girl-crush!) went big on climate change at Davos this year. She made it pretty clear that climate is at the heart of the debate.

In the corporate world, we have building evidence of the importance of women at senior management levels. I was so excited when I came across this fantastic research which found that companies with more gender-balanced boards are less often sued for breaching environmental laws. My instinct tells me this is obvious but it’s empowering to have the data to hand.

And it continues. I recently came across an IFC paper that summarized findings from a wide literature review, uncovering substantial evidence connecting increased gender diversity at the top with environmental, social and governance standards. Again, it seems obvious but …

So where next?

It’s all beginning to happen. And sure, I am already looking at board diversity as an investment priority and have begun digging into ETFs that identify gender diverse companies such as SPDR SSGA Gender Diversity Index ETF and Barclays Women in Leadership ETN.

But it doesn’t seem enough. In fact, it’s fairly short of what I want. I really want is to channel my money directly towards supporting women in solving the climate change challenge. Over the next few weeks I am going to research the hell out of this and see what I can come up with.

If I don’t find what I am looking for, perhaps it’s time to raise a fund – an idea I’ve been toying with for some time!

If you have ideas or come across investment funds that really do focus on the intersect between women and climate, please shoot me an email or leave a comment here!