Integrating women in the clean energy supply chain: identifying patterns and barriers to their inclusion using case studies of clean energy projects in India

Abstract

Introduction

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development provides a holistic approach to development by integrating its social, economic and environmental dimensions, and making the process participative by engaging all the relevant stakeholders, including women, and implementing the principle of “leaving no one behind.” While the SDGs recognise the importance of gender equality (SDG 5), and clean and affordable energy (SDG 7) separately, there exists a gender-energy nexus which makes the two goals mutually reinforcing. The gender-energy nexus arises because of different energy needs of men and women due to gendered roles and responsibilities in the household and society. Women share a disproportionate burden of domestic chores like cooking, and therefore energy becomes their primary responsibility in a household; most of which is obtained from traditional biomass fuels such as wood, charcoal, and agricultural wastes due to lack of access to cleaner forms of energy.

Such dependence of women on traditional fuels is a cause for concern due to various reasons. Firstly, the task of fuelwood collection is physically exerting and unsafe. Secondly, it takes away most of their time, subjecting them to time poverty and leaving little or no time for them to undertake productiveactivities. Thirdly, the use of traditional fuels causes indoor pollution and has adverse health effects. In India, 53 percent of the population lacks access to clean fuels and technologies for cooking, with time spent per day on collecting such fuels ranging from 40 minutes to 2 hours and exposure to smoke from traditional fuels causing 481,738 premature deaths in 2017 (Data World Bank, 2017; IEA 2019). Access to clean energy for women has the ability to reduce their time and energy poverty. For instance, a study found that the use of an improved cookstove could reduce the time spent on cooking by 20 minutes, which was further reduced by 1 hour 10 minutes with a stove using non-solid fuel. This leaves them with more time for productive activities, and therefore expands women’s opportunities for education and paid employment.

The existing literature that explores the gender-energy nexus sees women as victims of energy poverty, recognises the need to reduce their drudgery within the sphere of household, and accordingly considers them as beneficiaries of increased access. However, the emerging literature on gender-energy nexus goes beyond the role of women as “users” and “beneficiaries” of clean energy and emphasises the role that women can play in expanding clean energy. Such literature argues for women being active stakeholders and part of the process of providing clean energy. The underlying basis is that since women are the ultimate consumers of energy, they drive demand for household energy and determine shifts in energy use patterns; therefore making it imperative for the clean energy initiatives to be reflective of their energy requirements.

One of the ways in which this can be done is by integrating women in the energy workforce, particularly in the supply chain of clean energy products and services, as it will cater to women’s energy needs better, and bring greater acceptability and adoption of such products. As such, integrating women at all levels of the supply chain including product design, production and manufacturing, distribution and sales, and after sales services is called for. Based on this, the paper investigates the opportunities and barriers for women’s integration at all the levels of the clean energy supply chain, and identifies the key determining factors for the same through case studies of ongoing initiatives in India like SURE, Solar Saheli, Barefoot, SEWA and Jagriti for markets for clean cookstoves and rooftop solar systems