A Study on Gender Equality as a Prerequisite for Sustainable Development

What we know about the extent to which women globally live in a more sustainable way than men, leave a smaller ecological footprint and cause less climate change

By: Johnson-Latham G
Published by: Environment Advisory Council, 2007
Via: Siyanda

This study, presented at the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD 15), offers new directions for sustainable development work by identifying real gender-specific differences in terms of male and female consumption patterns, lifestyles, access to resources and power, and environmental effects, including climate change - by demonstrating how these differences are crucially important in sustainable development work. Wellbeing and happiness is both a question of material consumption, and of addressing unsustainable levels of combined productive and reproductive work, which disproportionately burdens most women. Men, particularly rich men (in both rich and poor countries), often have greater access to resources and to mobility than women who, in rural and urban areas alike, consume less and travel less. Men therefore account for more carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions than women, in both rich and poor countries.

The study makes recommendations, including: greater commitments should be made to find technological solutions to environmental issues and encourage sustainable consumption; more investment is needed in sustainable and gender-equal public transport systems is needed, which involve women in decision-making, improve their mobility, and cause less environmental damage; and importance of strengthening the social dimension of sustainability, including gender-equal welfare models focusing less on goods and more on services that reduce the ill-health, stress and productive and reproductive workloads of people (mostly women).
(http://www.sou.gov.se/mvb/pdf/rapport_engelska.pdf)