Gender mainstreaming urban waste reduction in European cities

Abstract

This paper contributes to gender mainstreaming and waste management literatures, which largely neglect the empirical dimensions of gender mainstreaming in environmental practices, and have a complete lacuna in waste management. Informed by an ecofeminist approach which argues that gender equality is necessary to achieve environmental sustainability, the paper, and its underpinning research, utilizes feminist and participatory methodologies for implementing gender mainstreaming in waste reduction innovations. This enables the links between greater gender awareness and more environmentally sustainable waste management practice to be explored, and the opportunities for, and obstacles to, adopting gender mainstreaming in waste management to be assessed. The largely qualitative data, drawn from surveys, focus groups and evaluations in eleven European cities, suggest that while developing gender awareness in waste reduction is complex, with many factors contributing to its adoption, a link between waste reduction initiatives achieving CO₂ equivalent savings and greater gender awareness can be observed.

Keywords:

• gender
• gender mainstreaming
• waste reduction
• environmental sustainability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

To EU Horizon 2020 for funding the project. Grant Agreement Number: WASTE-6a-2015 690452.