Sustainability Consulting: Close the Eco Gender Gap

Why women suffer more from the destruction of our livelihoods

An article by Alexandra Namyslowski.

After part 2 of our Eco-Gender-Gap article series dealt with the question of why more men than women are destroying our livelihoods, part 3 shows why women suffer more from the destruction of our livelihoods.

Women suffer more from the destruction of our livelihoods, as the following examples show.

The first concerns the effects of environmental pollution on people with lower incomes. Gotelind Alber, a physicist, climate and gender expert and co-founder of the GenderCC-Women for Climate Justice association, refers to studies, for example for Hamburg, which show that air pollution caused by mobility affects people with lower incomes more – and these are mostly women. In the case of air pollution caused by mobility, it is more men who pollute.  

The second example is the number of deaths from environmental disasters. While in the north – for example in floods – men are more likely to die because they carry out riskier activities, in the global south – especially in heat waves – it is more likely to be women. Even if you take into account the fact that there are more older women than men.

In marginalized societies, women also suffer from increased male violence, which is exacerbated by heat, because as temperatures rise, cases of domestic and sexual violence also increase. A 2023 study published in JAMA Psychiatry found that a 1°C increase in average annual temperature is enough to cause a more than 6.3 % increase in physical and sexual domestic violence in three South Asian countries: India, Nepal and Pakistan. Climate change thus acts as a threat multiplier, exacerbating social, political and economic tensions. And as climate change literally fuels and inflames conflicts around the world, women and girls are more likely to be victims of gender-based violence, including conflict-related sexual violence, human trafficking, child marriage and other forms of abuse that are more often perpetrated by men.

Part 4 of our article series on the Eco Gender Gap shows how companies can close the Eco Gender Gap and what role sustainability communication plays in this.