Globally, the renewable energy market was estimated at US$ 970 billion in 2022 and is projected to exceed US$ 2182.99 billion by 2032. Yet, widespread gender disparities in the energy sector continue to undermine business performance while furthering economic and social inequality. Women comprise a mere one third of the renewable energy workforce worldwide – primarily in administrative roles, as they hold less than 11% of leadership roles, and represent less than 4% of CEOs. These gaps are reinforced by unequal access to education, technical skills and training opportunities, the lack of policies to company policies to promote gender equality, and low buy-in across the energy value chain, amongst other factors. A growing body of evidence clearly demonstrates that advancing women’s leadership, employment, and participation in renewable energy projects not only accelerates
social and environmental impact in communities of influence, but it also drives financial sustainability, increased investability, balanced decision making, and risk mitigation.
In collaboration with Soléco Energy and IDB Invest, Deetken Impact has produced a new case study examining the effectiveness of technical assistance efforts to directly advance gender equity within the male-dominated renewable energy sector. Driven by an innovative investment contract with IDB Invest featuring ambitious interest rate-linked gender milestones, Deetken Impact worked with investee Soléco Energy to design initiatives that foster women’s employment, leadership, and inclusion across the value chain of award-winning solar PV distributed generation projects.