EMPOWERING WOMEN IN GREEN BUSINESS

Women-led green businesses are key to unlocking India's sustainable future

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Union Minister Piyush Goyal's recent call for greater innovation among Indian start-ups highlights an important challenge and opportunity that often gets overlooked: the need to support green innovation and increase the number of women-led green businesses in a world with an increasingly erratic climate.

Green enterprises are rapidly becoming an economic force. A study by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) shows that Odisha's green economy alone has a market potential of $23 billion. Imagine scaling that across India, not only in renewable energy but also in sectors such as circular economy, bio-packaging, engineered bamboo, e-waste recycling, and battery manufacturing. Yet, women currently lead just 18% of all start-ups in 2024, limiting the pace and scale at which India can realise this green potential. On this Environment Day, it is critical to recognise that empowering more women entrepreneurs in the green economy is not only a matter of equity but also essential for building a sustainable and prosperous India by 2047.

What needs to be done

First, finance needs to be unbiased. All start-ups need to solve the wicked problem of raising funds, but it is a tad bit tougher when the green technology is new and you are a woman. For Rashi Gupta, the founder of Vision Mechatronics, which operates in lithium-ion batteries, finance had been a bottleneck since 2015.