Genesys Autumn School: Gender and Intersectional Inequalities in Energy Transition

Call for applications: January 15 – March 31, 2025

Find out more here.

gEneSys “Transforming Gendered Interrelations of Power and Inequalities in Transition Pathways to Sustainable Energy Systems” is a European project exploring all these facets of the gender-energy nexus with the aim of proposing pathways for a just and gender-equitable energy transition.

The shift to renewable energy is an important change for society, both in the Global North and South, allowing us to produce energy without relying on fossil fuels. By employing technologies that have the potential to revolutionize industries, enhance efficiency, and create new economic opportunities, sustainable energy addresses global challenges such as climate change and societal needs. As with every sociotechnical revolution, this shift brings along challenges affecting the different subsystems involved in the energy transition processes. Inequalities and drawbacks can be reproduced or exacerbated at the environmental, economic, social, and political level.

As with all technologies and policies that have a direct impact on people’s lives, considerable gender inequalities can also be observed in the energy transition – both in relation to the production of energy, its consumption and its political regulation. Energy Research and Innovation (R&I) workforce, the linchpin in fostering knowledge creation and technologies development, is still unbalanced. Women are significantly underrepresented in the field as researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs, decision makers, and leaders. The average share of women in the R&I workforce in companies of the energy sector in the EU27 is 22% (CINEA 2024 and IEA).

Regarding energy consumption, gender inequalities along with other socioeconomic and cultural factors, influence citizens’ energy behaviours and the acceptance of renewable energy. These factors are identified as crucial for the uptake of energy technologies (International Energy Agency, 2020), but seldom included in technologically focused interventions. Women are also more often than men affected by energy poverty and underrepresented in the energy decision-making (EC 2024).Gender inequalities also intersect with the power imbalances between the Global North and Global South, meaning that the opportunities and challenges of a just transition are not the same everywhere. It is therefore necessary to deepen gender-energy nexus in the various forms it takes between the Global North and Global South, and within them.