Climate and nature crises impacts on women and girls
A briefing for women’s organisations.
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About this report
This briefing summarises research examining how the climate and nature crises affect women and girls in the UK and identifies opportunities to mitigate these impacts while maximising positive opportunities. It aims to provide UK based women’s organisations with relevant evidence and a clearer understanding of how climate change may affect the communities they serve, and where their knowledge are essential to achieving a fair transition.
Environmental change will touch the life of every woman in the UK, whether in terms of health issues like heat and air quality, living costs, service disruption, or safety issues. As we live in the world that the patriarchal ideologies have created for us, the climate and nature crises are bound to have an impact on women and girls that is greater in degree than the impact on their male counterparts. The role of women’s organisations is therefore twofold: protecting women from these impacts, while also ensuring they can also participate in and benefit from the opportunities created by environmental change.
The findings are also intended for funders and decision-makers who support, resource or influence climate and social policy. Climate and environmental organisations may likewise find insights into why embedding gender justice in their work is vital to building a more equitable and effective response to the climate crisis.
How will the climate and nature crises affect women and girls?
Published: 12 March 2026
Size: 4.56 MB
DownloadReport findings and recommendations
For women’s organisations
Why they matter
- Positioned within communities and trusted by those most affected.
- Essential to delivering a fair, equitable transition.
What they need
- Sustained funding to act as core resilience partners.
- Ability to take on formal roles in: Local Resilience Forums Integrated Care Boards (e.g., heatwave outreach, trauma‑informed support)
What they can deliver
- Practical action in housing, parks, food, transport and skills.
- Collecting meaningful data
Why it matters
- Evidence they collect can shape decisions on: retrofit standards, safer parks, cash‑first food support, after‑dark bus standards, and more.
For environmental and climate organisations
The opportunity
- NGOs shape public understanding, policy, and community engagement.
- They can ensure climate solutions reduce, not reproduce, inequality.
What must change
- Embed gender‑responsive and intersectional practice in:
- Evidence gathering
- Service design
- Community engagement
- Policy influencing
Practical actions
- Partner with women’s and equalities organisations to co‑design solutions.
- Build gender equity into governance, staffing and decision-making.
- Disaggregate outcome data to track who benefits from climate action.
For funders
Fund where impact is greatest
- Multi‑year core funding for women’s organisations.
- Rapid‑response grants for climate emergencies.
- Capital investment: cool/warm spaces, ventilation upgrades, safe shelter standards.
Invest in evidence & action
- Support UK‑relevant research: menstrual/reproductive health, food security, mental health, eco‑anxiety.
- Fund pilots such as: cash‑first food access, antenatal heat‑risk screening, safe shelter standards.
Unlock system change
- Use match funding to enable local commissioning.
- Support inclusive apprenticeships: childcare, paid learning time, flexible routes.
- Mandate intersectional gender approaches across climate, rights, and social action sectors.
For policymakers
- Make gender & intersectionality foundational
Embed gender‑responsive, intersectional thinking into all climate and resilience planning, treat it as core infrastructure, not an add‑on. - Design systems around real‑world risk
Ensure emergency, health, housing, transport and economic systems reflect how women and girls actually experience climate impacts, safety, care roles,mobility patterns, economic precarity. - Resource fairness, not neutrality
Move beyond “gender‑neutral” policy. Direct investment, standards, and enforcement towards the people and places most exposed to climate risk. - Shift power & participation
Formally include women’s organisations, equalities groups and community voices in planning, decision‑making and accountability structures. - Use data to close gaps
Monitor outcomes by gender, income, race, disability, age & migration status. Use this evidence to steer funding, standards and regulation
Download the full report
How will the climate and nature crises affect women and girls?
Size: 4.56 MB
DownloadProject partners
About Everyone's Environment
Communities shaping decisions about the climate, nature and our futures.
Everyone’s Environment is an alliance of social purpose and environmental groups championing community voices and life experiences. Together with communities experiencing inequalities, we are changing who is included indecisions about the climate, nature and our futures. NPC enables the alliance, working alongside more than 80 ambitious organisations.
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