International Women’s Day Focus

By Sharon Kimathi, Energy and ESG Editor, Reuters Digital

I know it’s on March 8, but as there is no Sustainable Switch on a weekend, I figured it was best to get ahead of the game.

In this IWD special, we’ll be going over the main environmental, social and governance concerns that affect women.

We’ll look at how the Middle East and other conflicts have been affecting women from impacting momentum in rights gained to heightening the lack of physical and energy security.

Then we’ll take stock of how women around the world have been impacted by the ESG rollbacks, from job losses to deprioritising equality initiatives.

This week, a United Nations Independent ⁠International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran expressed deep shock over a strike that hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ school in Minab in southern Iran which killed schoolgirls aged seven to 12.

The incident has been condemned by the U.N. culture and education agency UNESCO and Nobel Peace Prize-winning education activist Malala Yousafzai. The U.N. noted that targeting schools, hospitals or any civilian infrastructure constitutes a war crime under international law.

I spoke to Professor Maryam Alemzadeh, Associate Professor in the History and Politics of Iran at the University of Oxford, who shared her thoughts on the consequences of the conflict in the Middle East for the women’s rights movement in Iran.

“Due to the strikes, surveillance and repression is at an all-time high under the guise of national security, and activists and ordinary people alike have been forced to switch to survival mode,” said Alemzadeh.

“We are witnessing today that the women’s rights movement, like any other inkling of a democratic movement that existed in Iran, continues to lose ground with the continuation of the war; even after the assassination of the supreme dictator Ali Khamenei.”

People attend the funeral of the victims following a reported strike on a school in Minab, Iran. Amirhossein Khorgooei/ISNA/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Women are also bearing the brunt of the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

I spoke to Joy Osomiamhe-O, regional manager for Africa at the World Energy Council, who shared her thoughts on the urgency of addressing security, sustainability and equity for women in areas affected by conflict.

“In fragile contexts like Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, women and youth bear the heaviest social and economic costs of crisis. The international community must prioritise resilience to ensure recovery efforts deliver stability, opportunity, and lasting development in the affected countries,” said Osomiamhe-O.

But it’s not just in war zones that women bear the cost of a crisis.

Physical and sexual violence affects roughly a third of women in the European Union during their lifetime, but most incidents go unreported, according to a survey by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights and the European Institute for Gender Equality.

The survey showed that only 11.3% of women reported physical or sexual abuse by non-partners to the police, and just 6.1% reported violence by intimate partners. The study also highlighted other widespread forms of abuse, including psychological, economic, and online abuse.

Despite these challenges, women are resilient! Let's highlight our wins.

Keep scrolling for a feature on the women who are still rising to the top of our sector in spite of facing multiple setbacks this year in the annual Reuters Events top female trailblazers in climate policy and finance list.

This ties in nicely with our ESG Lens on Equileap's 10th annual Gender Equality Report and Ranking.

Reuters Events is celebrating the women driving the climate agenda through this turbulent year.

Click here to read more about the 12 trailblazers chosen from the fields of policy, finance, business and activism, to tell us some of the biggest challenges and opportunities they see in the climate space, particularly for women.

The Reuters Events Sustainable Business Trailblazing Women in Climate 2026. Reuters Events/ Terry Slavin

We must stop mistaking boardroom diversity for executive power, writes Sanda Ojiambo, CEO and executive director of the U.N. Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative. Ojiambo points to the mass exodus of several prominent women leaders from the FTSE 100 (Debra Crew at Diageo, Emma Walmsley at GSK and Liv Garfield at Severn Trent) all of whom were replaced by men. Click here for the full comment for Ethical Corp Magazine.

The U.S. Supreme Court blocked a series of California laws that can limit the sharing of information with parents about the gender identity of transgender public school students without the child's permission, handing a victory to Christian parents who challenged these protections. The Supreme Court's decision on Monday was powered by its conservative justices, with its three liberal members dissenting.

The European Commission – responding to the women's rights campaign "My Voice, My Choice" –  said that member states may use an existing EU social fund to terminate pregnancies free of charge for women visiting from EU nations that restrict access to safe abortions, a significant policy clarification amid divisive debates on abortion rights.

Carla Galeote, a Spanish lawyer and prominent women's rights activist who suffered online abuse, including AI-generated fake nude images, said the government's pledge to regulate social media does not go far enough, calling for anonymous accounts to be made traceable to end impunity for digital violence. Spain wants to impose a ban on under-16s accessing social media and criminal liability for platform executives who fail to remove illegal or hateful content.

Women are also facing setbacks in religious leadership roles. The Global Anglican Future Conference, which brings together conservative churches around the world, strongly criticised the Church of England's appointment last October of Sarah Mullally as its first female Archbishop of Canterbury. Click here for the full story and video.

As I mentioned above, although there are challenges, we still need to celebrate our successes. There are still companies out there that are championing gender equality. Equileap, an international data provider for diversity and inclusion and gender equality, just crowned their best performing company for gender equality globally. 

Here’s a table of the top 10, featuring this year’s top company, National Bank of Canada, with a score of 86%. “This is the first year, since we started publishing our report in 2017, that a company has reached a score of over 80%,” according to the report. Click here to access the full report.