The global theme for International Women's Day in 2022 is 'Changing Climates: Equality Today for a Sustainable Tomorrow'. This year's theme is all about recognising and amplifying the important role women and girls around the world play in addressing climate change.
This year's theme for IWD speaks straight to heart of what we do at Climate Salad. Not just because we're proud champions of diversity and gender equality, after all our founder, Mick Liubinskas, did write the book 'She's Building a Robot' to encourage more women and girls into STEM, but because it speaks to the core of our mission. To facilitate a significant, global scale, positive change on the environment by helping climate tech companies grow.
We know that what we do to help this fast-growing and exciting startup sector shapes our future. Already our community represents more than 3,000 jobs in climate tech across Australia and New Zealand. How we include women, girls and people from gender minorities within our startup community from these early stages of development creates a more equitable and inclusive future.
Gendered norms and ideas of what a woman’s role should be in society often mean that women and girls experience the impacts of climate change and natural disasters differently. Yet in spite of this, their voices are frequently side-lined when it comes to developing solutions to the climate crisis – with 67% of all climate-related decision-making roles currently held by men.
Globally, only 9.5% of Climate Tech founders are female, however in Climate Salad we more than double that with 25.9% of companies founded by women.
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We still have work to do to close this gap and although women and gender diverse people make up a quarter of our founder community, the supporters, investors and mentor list is growing, and in this image we've captured some of the champions within our climate tech community.
In Australia, only a third of businesses are run by women, only 29% of funded companies have a female co-founder and only 4 of the top 10 venture capital firms have women as partners. Which is why we created the Woman in Climate Tech Award to elevate and amplify the female leaders in Climate Tech. The award recognises the women in Climate Tech kicking goals but also the one who is holding the door open, creating leadership pathways for the next generation of women in climate tech.
Our inaugural winner in 2021, founder of World's Biggest Garage Sale, Yas Grigaliunas, exemplifies what it means to be a role model, leader and mentor address the climate crisis.
What her acceptance speech below:
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Award nominations will open later in the year, and to meet some of our incredible women founders, be sure to join us at the Melbourne Climate Tech Showcase.
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