Gender Equality
for an Inclusive Energy Transition

by Laura Gaetana Giuffrida, Senior Researcher ENEA, and Alicia Mignone, Advisor for International Cooperation Elettrici Senza Frontiere Italia

INCREASED DEMAND FOR CLEAN ENERGY AND LOW-CARBON SOLUTIONS IS DRIVING AN UNPRECEDENTED TRANSFORMATION OF THE ENERGY SECTOR. BUT WOMEN ARE BEING LEFT OUT...

The role of women in the energy transition has acquired great relevance and at present is being the subject of analysis and study of a multiplicity of actors: International and Multilateral organisations, private entities and foundations, networks, initiatives and campaigns as well as research and collaboration programs. A wider involvement of women in the energy sector is desirable from diff erent perspectives: to increase women’s job opportunities, to fi ght energy poverty, to build a more inclusive social and economic model.
At policy level, the declaration of the G7 and G20 meetings constitutes another example of the importance and impact of the gender gap issue. The policy makers holistic approach addresses many diff erent issues not only related to the energy transformation. The main subject of this paper is to present a snapshot of the activities carried out by some of the actors cited above to foster the transition to a low carbon economy through promoting women’s participation in clean energy sector.

The activities and messages reported in this report come from:
◼ International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Clean Energy, Education and Empowerment Initiative
◼ International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)
◼ UN Sustainable Development Goal Number 7
◼ European Commission
◼ The European Institute for Gender Equality
◼ G7 and G20

International Energy Agency
Over the last years, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has assumed a pivotal role on the topic of energy and gender. The IEA is mandated “to build up and share knowledge to help tackle issues related to future human capacity needs, including equal opportunities for women and men in the energy sector” in accordance with the 2019 Ministerial Meeting Communiqué. The IEA Gender Diversity Initiative re-activated in 2019 aims at improving data collection and analysis of the gender gaps and developing recommendations for decision-makers for addressing imbalances.
The IEA preliminary analytical output has focused in the areas of Employment, Management, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Disaggregated gender data for the energy sector are rare and much eff ort is required to develop data that is comparable across countries. The IEA analysis is mainly based on data already available and some of them are the results of collaboration with the Statistics and Data Directorate of the OECD. The IEA preliminary findings based on labour force survey for the EU28 highlight that Women’s employment and senior roles in the energy sector is below that of the broader economy and varies widely across energy related sub-sectors.

Regarding Innovation, the share of female as inventors on patent applications in different energy technologies shows that women are listed in less than 11 per cent in those patents classes associated with energy sector, and over 15 per cent for climate change mitigation technologies (IEA/OECD- EPO World Patent Statistical Database). In the Entrepreneurship area, the share of female-founded start-ups highlights that only about 11 per cent of energy sector founders are female compared with 20 per cent across all sectors. The fi gure was even lower for energy start-ups with a digital focus. Disaggregating energy sector start-ups further, non-solar renewable energy start-ups have the greatest degree of female representation. Solar and electric vehicle start-ups have the lowest representation. [...]

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