While gender perspectives are increasingly being integrated into policy areas such as labour, education, and health, the intersection of gender and energy remains largely underexplored. 

An integration of gender aspects in energy policies is essential for several reasons:     

• for recognising women and TINA* as active actors in energy production and energy consumption, since the energy sector is currently male-dominated. 

• for addressing skills shortages and employment gaps in the energy system by bringing more diverse people into this system  

• for understanding specific energy needs, e.g. when it comes to energy poverty, since more women are affected by this specific form of poverty. 

But how can we aim to implement this and ensure that gender perspectives are systematically integrated into all political and administrative decisions? 

On 20th of November 2024, WECF e.V. conducted the online workshop “Gender Mainstreaming in energy policies” in cooperation with Hanna Ahrenberg from the Bundesverband Erneuerbare Energie e.V. (BEE). The workshop enabled a safer space for participants to share their experiences, wishes and ideas on how to make gender policies more gender-just.  

The trainers from WECF and BEE provided a definition of the term gender mainstreaming and gave an overview of the current status quo of including GM or social aspects in energy policies. The key message is that none of Germany’s policies properly include these aspects, but that for example the Solar Package I under the Renewable Energy Act has potential to strengthen citizen energy projects and mobilise more diverse social groups for it.  

After the theoretical input, the practical part of the workshop focused on different gender indicators, distinguishing between qualitative and quantitative indicators, to foster gender-just programs and policies. To kick-start the discussion, the participants were asked to answer two questions:

1) What changes and activities would you like to see to make energy policies more gender-just?

2) Which target groups are not yet considered in energy policies, but shall be considered? 

Furthermore, different best practices such as the Ministry of Energy of Chile and the National Poverty Fuel Strategy in Spain, were presented. The National Poverty Fuel Strategy emphasises the importance of considering gender in addressing energy poverty, since it acknowledges the necessity for statistical data to understand energy poverty from a gender standpoint, highlighting the significance of disaggregation by gender to analyse intra-household inequalities. 

The interactive methods used during the workshop not only provided space to reflect on which target groups are still not considered in energy policies, but also to brainstorm together on how to improve gender mainstreaming in energy policies. The target groups the participants would like to see considered in energy policies, for example, are young people, people with disabilities, multi-discriminated people, BIPOC. Ways to improve gender mainstreaming in energy policy were identified as increasing the representation of WLINTA**, for example through inclusion and participation of WLINTA in the planning process of energy infrastructure projects, the provision of budgetary resources for gender-specific capacity building and policy makers and gender-disaggregated data collection, as well as the inclusion of the views of the vulnerable, most affected and lived experiences.  

The workshop concluded with key recommendations on how to develop and implement gender-just energy policies.   

* Trans, Intersex, Non-Binary and Agender people

** Women, Lesbians, Intersex, Non-binary, Trans and Agender people