It’s Not What Companies Can Do for Women but the Other Way Around

One of the growing concerns in the relevant international energy organizations is the absence of women in the material decision-making processes, both in state-owned and private enterprises. In the report published by the International Energy Agency titled “Gender diversity in energy: what we know and what we don’t know,” by Nick Johnstone and Martha Silva, the authors express great concern of the absence of women, not so much in administrative and lower echelon technical positions, but in the higher management levels. More specifically, this report refers to the rather visible lack of gender equality in energy companies, be they the Oil and Gas or Renewable Energy companies. An even more alarming fact in this report is that “Despite making up 48% of the global labour force, women only account for 22% of the labour force in the oil and gas sector and 32% in renewables. These gender gaps in employment vary across the different energy sub-sectors.” 

The fact that women are underrepresented in the energy sector appears to hamper the performance of these companies. According to the above cited study of the IAE, “(…) based on labour force survey data for the European Union, we find that women’s share of employment in energy sub-sectors perform poorly when compared with both the overall labour force (46%) and to other industrial sub-sectors. The lowest performing sub-sector, which is also energy‑related, is mining of coal and lignate.” According to this study, low numbers of women are a cause of a lesser performance in energy companies.

As concerns Mexico, no gender equality has been part of energy policy, ever. As of today, if there have been women in the CFE and PEMEX boards, this has been as a result of their nature as political appointees. During the past three administrations, Mexico has had two female secretaries of energy and one undersecretary. By law, these women must be part of the Board of the State-Owned Companies by virtue of their affiliation to the government, albeit not as a result of gender inclusive policy based on merit. Nonetheless, to our knowledge, no gender equality initiative has stemmed from their presence in the boards.

In the US, on the other hand, on International Women’s Day of 2021, US President Joe Biden signed an Executive Order establishing the White House Gender Policy Council, which intends to widen the opportunities of women while simultaneously combating systematic biases and discrimination against the same. “The council plans to do this by coordinating federal government efforts to increase economic support, promote gender equity in leadership, prevent all forms of gender-based violence and bolster initiatives to empower women, both domestically and internationally.”

Carl J. Flemming and Elle Hayes underscore the initiatives of the renewable energy companies which prioritize gender equality.  One example is the Women of Renewable Industries and Sustainable Energy (WRISE) program, which supports the educational, professional development and advancement of women in the renewable energy sector with the aspiration of combating systemic inequities. Also, the Women in Renewable Energy (WIRE) Network program is a network of women working in renewable companies which combats structural gender inequities, usually exacerbated by climate change.  Finally, these authors mention the Clean Energy Council’s Women in Renewables initiative as a platform to support women working in renewable energy to become leaders of industry.

Today, there are plans to initiate an integration between Mexico and the US in terms of solar power exports deriving from the Plan Sonora, which aims at delivering renewable based electricity to the bordering region of the US  from Mexico. In such a plan, Mexico’s state-owned utility company, Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), is intended to champion these efforts by being the primary power supplier. This plan should not be limited to a commercial exchange, as it could be a good opportunity for CFE to enrich its practices with gender inclusion with basis on the Biden government gender inclusion initiatives or any other it deems suitable. This is indeed an opportunity, not only to discuss business as usual, but, for commercial initiatives to bear fruit, they should have gender inclusion as a priority in the negotiation agenda. 

Gender inclusion may thrive with new frameworks and parameters that quantify sustainable performance and value creation. Thus, paraphrasing JFK, the question is not what companies can do for women but the great things women can do for companies.