Driving Corporate Action on Climate and Nature Through Gender Equality

Driving Corporate Action on Climate and Nature through Gender Equality

15:30 ICT | 18 March 2025

Overview

Rooting gender equality in corporate climate and nature strategies is essential for fostering inclusive actions that lead to stronger investment outcomes. Gender-responsive corporate and policy initiatives enhance risk management, foster stakeholder trust, and build resilience—key pillars of responsible business conduct. However, effectively integrating gender equality into policy frameworks, investment decisions, and business due diligence requires multi-layered interventions. This necessitates concerted efforts from governments, investors, businesses, and other stakeholders to take tangible and practical steps in addressing intersecting challenges.

Emerging regulations in Asia are driving gender-responsive actions to address the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. For instance, Japan’s Corporate Governance Code promotes gender-responsive action by encouraging diversity in leadership, fostering inclusive decision-making, and ensuring women’s representation in sustainability governance structures. Similarly, India’s Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting (BRSR) framework advances gender equity by incorporating gender-disaggregated metrics into environmental and social disclosures, compelling businesses to report on diversity outcomes and workplace inclusion, while guiding investors in their decision-making processes. At a regional level, the ASEAN Gender Mainstreaming Framework embeds gender equity into regional climate action initiatives by promoting policies that link women’s empowerment with sustainable development goals, fostering inclusive climate adaptation strategies.

While these signs of progress are significant, regulation alone cannot resolve the systemic issues driving gender inequality in climate and nature strategies. Addressing these challenges requires a coordinated response across all sectors of society—businesses, governments, and communities—working collaboratively to reshape behaviors, structures, and cultural norms. Businesses are encouraged to integrate gender equity into their strategies, governments to co-create an enabling environment through inclusive policies, and society to foster cultural shifts towards gender and environmental justice. Growing awareness, supported by local, regional, and global frameworks, highlights the importance of an integrated, multi-level approach. Global commitments reinforce this urgency, for example, the Cali Fund instituted during COP16 re-enforces the need to invest in gender-inclusive biodiversity strategies, and similarly during COP29 gender-responsive climate finance featured as a key consideration. But, what shape does this multifaceted approach take in practice?

Format

Framed as a policy lab, this session will feature a panel of investors, businesses, and civil society engaging in an in-depth dialogue on key questions and their implications for Asia.

The conversation will explore critical issues such as: How can businesses in Asia ensure that gender-responsive strategies are embedded into climate and nature action plans while respecting local contexts? What role should investors and regulators play in advancing gender outcomes within corporate impact assessments? Most importantly, how can women’s and youth voices from Asia’s climate-vulnerable communities be elevated in shaping corporate responses to the triple planetary crisis? What changes in behaviors, structures, and norms are needed to implement these policies and strategies, and what is needed to achieve this?

Through this policy lab format, participants will exchange insights, share experiences, and collaborate on practical approaches for driving gender equity in corporate climate and nature responses, with a focus on Asia’s regional challenges and opportunities.

LEARN:

Impact Pathways: Analyze how gender-responsive strategies not only strengthen business resilience but also create lasting environmental outcomes, demonstrating the connection between inclusivity and sustainability.
Gender-Responsive Due Diligence Integration: Explore how businesses can embed gender equity into due diligence processes, business operations and reporting, ensuring that inclusion is central to performance metrics and impact assessments.
Policy Drivers: Examine how emerging regulatory shifts across Asia, such as mandatory gender-disaggregated reporting and leadership diversity requirements, are driving gender-inclusive corporate practices and accountability.

ENGAGE:

Leadership Dialogue: Engage with women leaders, and youth advocates leading the charge to gain insights into how inclusive leadership and diverse perspectives can accelerate corporate climate action and social equity outcomes.
Investor Catalysts: Unpack how investors can integrate gender criteria into investment decisions, using financial influence to drive corporate commitments and long-term behavioral change.
Practical Solutions: Exchange concrete strategies and best practices that businesses have implemented to embed gender equity into climate initiatives, ensuring actionable approaches that can be replicated and scaled.

CONNECT:

Sector Collaborations: Facilitate partnerships across industries, encouraging knowledge-sharing and joint initiatives to promote gender-equitable approaches to environmental challenges and climate resilience.
Grassroots Linkages: Build long-term relationships with women- and youth-led community initiatives, aligning corporate actions with local needs and amplifying the voices of those most impacted by climate change.
Action Platforms: Engage in multi-stakeholder initiatives and coalitions, working collectively with businesses, investors, civil society, and governments to advance gender equity as a cornerstone of climate action and environmental sustainability.

SESSION SPEAKERS

NATASHA GARCHA

Senior Director of Innovative Finance and Gender-Lens Investing, Impact Investment Exchange (IIX)

Natasha Garcha is the Senior Director of Innovative Finance and Gender-Lens Investing at Impact Investment Exchange (IIX). She has been instrumental in mobilizing innovative finance to empower women, notably through the pioneering Orange Movement, which focuses on gender equality, sustainable peace, and climate security. Natasha holds an MBA from the University of Oxford, where she specialized in Finance and Impact Investing, and a Master’s in International Relations from Harvard University focused on gender, climate and human rights. She previously worked on Wall Street at a hedge fund and brings over 15 years of experience using finance for sustainable development.

BAIGALMAA SHURKA

Senior Advisor, Mongolian Women's Association in Mineral Sector (WAMS)

Baigalmaa Shurka is a seasoned expert with over 20 years of experience in sustainable development, gender equality, and human rights, with a strong focus on the mining sector. As a Senior Advisor at the Women’s Association of Mineral Resources since 2019, she champions gender inclusion in Mongolia’s extractive industry. She has led UNDP-funded initiatives, developing Human Rights and Gender Equality e-learning modules and due diligence programs for mining and non-mining corporations. Baigalmaa has held executive roles, including General Manager of Regional Development and Social Performance at Rio Tinto’s Oyu Tolgoi project, where she advanced women’s opportunities and social management strategies. She also led health, safety, and environmental initiatives at Mongolian Mining Corporation and oversaw major infrastructure projects at Ivanhoe Mines Mongolia. With master’s degrees in Civil Engineering and Public Administration, she is a passionate advocate for women’s empowerment, ethical resource management, and sustainable development in mining

NGUYEN XUAN HONG ANH

Member, UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional Office's Young People’s Action Team (YPAT)

Growing up in Vietnam, Anh witnessed environmental degradation firsthand, from polluted air to the 2008 floods. Seeing her mother wade through thigh-high waters for food fueled her commitment to climate justice. At Waseda University, she focused on a just transition and women's empowerment. Her experience includes policy advocacy and youth engagement at EuroCham Vietnam and YNET Vietnam, contributing to sustainable finance policies and climate resilience. Now, as a member of UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional Office’s Young People’s Action Team (YPAT), Anh aims to drive gender-responsive climate action at the regional level.

JYOTIRAJ PATRA

Regional Representative Asia, Simavi

Raj is the Regional Representative Asia for Simavi. Simavi works on cross-cutting issues of gender, water and climate in Asia and Africa. Raj's expertise is in the field of water resources management and climate adaptation, with a special focus on gender equality and youth leadership. He has previously worked with UNDP, Concern Worldwide, FCDO, IDRC and Oxfam in Nepal, Bangladesh, Cambodia and India.

MRINALINI RAI

Founder/Executive Director, Women4 Biodiversity

Mrinalini Rai is a passionate advocate for gender equality, human rights, and biodiversity conservation, dedicated to ensuring that environmental policies are inclusive and just. As the Director of Women4Biodiversity, she has been instrumental in integrating gender-responsive and human rights-based approaches into global biodiversity governance. With a deep commitment to amplifying the voices of women, Indigenous Peoples, and local communities, she works to bridge the gap between international policy frameworks and grassroots realities.

Her efforts have been instrumental in shaping key policies, particularly advancing gender-responsive commitments within the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF). Beyond policy advocacy, she focuses on capacity-building, fostering coalitions, and enhancing collaboration among biodiversity-related Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs). She remains committed to driving transformative change, ensuring that biodiversity conservation efforts prioritize equity, rights, justice, and sustainability.

ALEXANDRA MUTUNGI

Gender and Climate Change Expert, UNEP

Alexandra Mutungi is a Gender and Climate Change Expert with UNEP Regional Office for Asia Pacific. She currently works for the joint UNEP and UN Women Programme – EmPower Women for climate resilient societies as the Southeast Asia regional focal point. Her global experience includes gender, environmental and social safeguard risk management for UNEP’s portfolio of projects and supporting civil society engagement in UNEP’s environmental policy development and implementation. She has regional experience in integrating gender into climate and energy policies in ASEAN and supporting governments and private sector access to climate finance, compliance and voluntary carbon markets in Sub-Saharan Africa. Her grassroots experience includes wildlife monitoring and community outreach under REDD+.