Parties to the UNFCCC adopted a Gender Action Plan and included gender equality in the overarching text of the Paris Agreement. By doing so, governments recognized women as important agents of change in the fight against global warming. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recognize that gender equality and women’s empowerment are critical to achieving all 16 other goals.
Indeed, women play a critical role in response to climate change due to their local knowledge of and leadership in sustainable resource management at the household and community level. However, these contributions remain mostly invisible and are not compensated.
What gets measured gets valued: 6 types of impacts on women
The W+ Standard™ is a unique certification label that measures and quantifies development and climate projects’ impacts on women’s empowerment in six areas: Time, Income & Assets, Leadership, Education & Knowledge, Health, and Food Security. The measurement of progress on women’s empowerment is verified by an external auditor, and results in W+ units – a quantifiable and realized improvement in a woman’s life.
W+ units are registered on the IHS Markit global registry, providing complete transparency, and can be sold by project developers to investors, companies, and individuals who want to support women’s empowerment and report on their engagement towards the Sustainable Development Goal #5.
Streamlined process to reduce carbon emissions while benefitting women
It is now possible for climate projects that produce positive outcomes for women’s empowerment to apply the W+ Standard™ and generate W+ units or W+ labeled carbon units to show their contributions to multiple SDGs simultaneously. Carbon units with co-benefits are likely to obtain premium prices and be more attractive to buyers.
The W+ Standard™ is partnering with VERRA to offer project developers and unit purchasers the opportunity to achieve both emissions reductions and women’s empowerment in a streamlined process. Projects using the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) can take advantage of dual-purpose compliance measures to generate W+ labeled Verified Carbon Units. Projects using other standards can use the W+ Standard™ in parallel with other social and environmental certifications.
Purchasing W+ units helps women
The W+ Standard™ both quantifies positive outcomes for women, AND includes a benefit sharing mechanism that directs money to them. As required by the Standard, at least 20% of the revenue from W+ unit sales is given to women’s groups engaged in the project to be utilized as they see best fit to address community needs and opportunities
Photo © : IFPRI / Common Creatives
