The Middle East is now at a juncture where it has the opportunity to elevate the roles that female leaders are playing in order to deliver on its climate and sustainability commitments.
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Historically, male leadership models have dominated in the region. Men traditionally take on leadership positions across most areas of public life including in the government and private sector, as well as within civil society. However, this is radically changing. There has been a notable shift over the last decade. More female leaders have emerged.
Undoubtedly the reasons behind this shift are complex. But concerted and focused efforts to propel the leadership success of women have had notable impact. Take, for example, Emirati Women’s Day – running since 2015 and hosted in the United Arab Emirates each year on 28 August. This is a day dedicated to recognising and amplifying the achievements of Emirati women, but that is not where it stops. With a healthy dose of practicality, significant attention has been given to identifying the challenges that women still face, while figuring out what needs to be done to overcome these barriers.
Simultaneously, we see Middle Eastern governments developing detailed and ambitious policy frameworks that seek to drive gender parity at all levels of society. Similar to the national visions of other Middle Eastern countries, Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 is anchored in commitments to amplify women’s influence across the socio-economic landscape and goes further to propose that women can be important catalysts for Saudi Arabia’s national transformation.
Building the Middle East’s sustainable future
There are so many reasons why gender parity makes sense, and we now have an abundance of data and research to demonstrate that everyone stands to benefit. This is particularly notable when we observe how women are stepping up as sustainability leaders. More and more, we see women across the region leading from the front on critical issues such as climate change, the low-carbon transition, social equity, access to health and so on.
In its most practical sense, sustainability leadership represents the kind of behaviors and actions that consider and solve for ‘big picture’ challenges; the kind of behaviour that seeks to meet the needs of all stakeholders; the kind of actions that identify solutions based on compassion for everyone. When we look around the world, it seems many women are delivering these leadership qualities and priorities in abundance.
But this is also happening on the ground in the Middle East. It’s happening at such a scale that as the momentum behind gender parity gathers speed, so too does the sizeable opportunity for women to shape and lead the region’s transition to a sustainable future. The good news is that others are recognising this too and looking for ways to support more women in coming to the fore as sustainability leaders.
At the core of this sits the importance of education, mentoring and having women play role models. And this is something that the region does well – recognising that progress must be made by highlighting successes and encouraging other to follow. A shining example can be found in Women in Sustainability, Environment and Renewable Energy (WiSER), a global platform established by renewable energy developer Masdar specifically to support the role of women as leaders in sustainable change. Platforms such as these are critical to encouraging younger generations of women to look at how they can weave sustainability into their professional and personal decisions.
Action and impact
When we speak about role models, we see women translating their leadership into action and impact across all walks of life and all sectors of society across the Middle East. It is a timely and important conversation to be had because it is these women who are at the forefront of how we redefine our economies and societies to be future-fit.
Take climate leadership as an example. At the COP28 climate summit held in Dubai last year, two of the three COP28 presidency officials – youth climate champion Shamma Al Mazrui and United Nations climate change high-level champion Razan Al Mubarak – were women. Furthermore, two-thirds of the COP28 management and negotiations teams were women. These are demonstrations of female leadership and are perhaps exactly why COP28 sought to put gender-responsive policymaking at the heart of its discussions. We can only hope that COP29 will do the same.
It is not just policy and government where female sustainability leadership is emerging. In the private sector, we see more women stepping into senior leadership roles related to sustainability and climate, in particular as chief sustainability officers and sustainability strategy leaders. It is heartening to see so many women taking on these on exciting roles – fairly new corporate position for many Middle Eastern businesses – in companies as diverse and influential as the region’s largest retail operator Chalhoub, multinational logistics company DP World, Dubai Islamic Bank and more. All of these companies have women helming the sustainability function.
The Middle East’s largest retail operator Chalhoub Group appointed Florence Bulté (left) as its chief sustainability officer. The group was one of the earlier firms in the Middle East to commit to increasing the number of women in its senior management roles. Image: Chalhoub Group
We are also seeing the rise of women in the world of finance leading the sustainability agenda in the Middle East. Some of the most ambitious and successful climate and social investment funds are founded by or anchored by female leaders, such as Optimum Green Ventures, Gulf Capital or Global Ventures. We see women investors seeking out opportunities that deliver on our climate and sustainability ambitions because they understand the complexity of what it takes to move towards a sustainable future.
The other side of the capital equation lies in the emergence female entrepreneurs who are building companies that deliver climate and sustainability solutions. The region is well known for its entrepreneurial verve and ecosystem; it comes as no surprise that some of the strongest entrepreneurial propositions are from female founders. Importantly, these female founders are seeking to solve the problems of the world – these are exactly the kind of companies that need to receive the private capital being directed towards the region’s low-carbon transition.
Where do we go from here?
Undeniably there is a growing army of women across the Middle East who are stepping into leadership roles and driving the necessary change to bring a sustainable and cleaner future for the region. Perhaps even more encouraging is the growing number of women who now want to shift their focus towards our collective goals, either by joining climate and sustainability-aligned organisations or changing their professional focus. This is great news.
All of these say one thing: women are well positioned to lead the way and ultimately smash through the green ceiling to drive our societies to reach newer heights. But this is not a given – it requires us all to consider what changes we need to make to ensure that gender parity extends such as to ensure that women are able to lead on sustainability. In some instances, it won’t just be about giving these women the opportunity to have a seat at the table. It will be about providing women with the tools to “build their own tables” when necessary.
During my research for an upcoming book publication, Breaking the green ceiling: Women redefining leadership for a sustainable future, I spoke with many women about their ambitions and experiences but also the challenges they face. Anecdotally, these women are often motivated by similar value frameworks and define success as a much deeper and connected sense of being. They will redefine what it means to be a sustainability leader by the very fact that their framework of thinking sits outside more traditional leadership models, which tend not to elevate leadership traits such as empathy, intuition, inclusivity and collaborations. Yet these are the qualities we urgently need. We need to radically change the narrative if we are to stand a chance at securing our sustainable future.
