After the great success of our EUSEW Event where eCREW gave a presentation (attached) regarding current developments in energy communities with a focus on women integration, we were invited by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung FES Just Climate as keynote speaker on the topic “Women to the forefront of the energy transition”.
More than 30 people joined the online event and generated a great discussion.
Our input included a 10 minutes speech followed by a 60 minutes discussion. We first presented some numbers we collected from our H2020 ECHOES Survey and switched to presenting our lighthouse communities (LCs) in eCREW. More than 28% of women are involved in our German and Turkish lighthouses, are part of the awareness programs and signed the CREW-contract. We are eager to continue our awareness programs regarding energy consumption and efficiency and women integration. Because “the energy transition is female”, so Hemma Bieser (general manager of OURPOWER (Austrian energy community). She meant that by now there are plenty of women that are technicians and engineers and who can play a vital role in this energy transition. In addition, women are still mostly the ones that are doing the laundry, cooking, turning on the dishwasher ect., so a lot of energy is consequently used by women, they often times choose what is purchased (meat, vegetables, locally or global purchases, clothes, ect.). Thus, women must be integrated when we talk about energy efficiency, reducing energy consumption and energy behavior in general.
Key pointers were:
- To start with policy making – include the gender topic from the beginning on
- To raise awareness – create awareness programs on a local and regional level and for policy makers/governments
- to start bottom-up women integration, e.g., in energy communities
- Digitalization as a useful connector for women to enter the energy transition (user-apps, smart meters)
Women are more open to feeling obligated to be energy efficient, to reduce energy consumption and the be and act more environmentally friendly the men – on average. Thus, women are the underestimated driver of the energy transition.
