Out now: The Environment Women's Takeover, March 2023

Women building a greener tomorrow

Welcome to the fourth women’s takeover issue of The Environment magazine – again, packed with brilliant and inspiring stories about and by scientists, thinkers, practitioners and campaigners who just happen to be women, all working towards a greener, cleaner and safer world.

We celebrate this work in our Sheroes spread. Last year’s most inspiring women and female members of the extended CIWEM family have nominated the woman whose work in water, climate change, land and sustainability most inspires them. Who would you have chosen? Join the conversation online, via CIWEM’s #IWD23 posts.

We hope all of this month’s stories will inspire you.

Writer and education campaigner Cindy Forde has just published her first children’s book. It uses colourful images and simple language to encourage children to aspire to create not consume, to make climate-friendlier choices doable and desirable. Forde has a wider agenda, to transform the way we educate tomorrow’s decisionmakers.

Sophia Kianni is changing education right now. An advisor to United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres, she told delegates some home truths at COP27 last year. Kianni is best known for Climate Cardinals, which translates climate science into all the world’s languages. All that aged just 21.

Filmmaker Bryony Benge-Abbott is reclaiming space for everyone in nature and the outdoors. Her film The Colour of Transformation celebrates inspiring women from minoritised backgrounds – and challenges the environment sector to open its doors.

And in her latest SuDS and the City column, run-off expert Jo Bradley presses the water industry to better manage our supply. And this month’s careers stories examine the structural and cultural barriers we face at work and set out how employers can do better.

The UK ranks 22^nd on the Global Gender-Gap Index; below Ireland, France and Germany. Headlines this year have highlighted how misogyny and violence against women are baked into our social structures. Globally, women are not yet equal, in the workplace, in the home or in society.

So as we celebrate everything women have achieved, let’s also think about what real equality looks like and work out what practices – what kind of society – will deliver it.

Karen Thomas

Editor, The Environment

@KT_Environment

Browse free articles from The Environment here.