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Which women are leading the way in the global green building movement?

Today is International Women’s Day – an opportunity to celebrate the social, economic, cultural political, and of course, environmental achievements of women around the world.

Our Green Building movement has a number of female leaders who are driving transformative change across the buildings industry. In fact, 13 of the CEOs in our 28 Established Green Building Councils are women – over 45 percent.

This is despite the fact the women often represent the small minority in the wider buildings industry. In the UK alone, the number of women in construction has actually fallen since 2008, making up just 11.2 percent of the construction workforce, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. In the EU, the figure is around 12 percent

Today is International Women’s Day – an opportunity to celebrate the social, economic, cultural political, and of course, environmental achievements of women around the world.

Our Green Building movement has a number of female leaders who are driving transformative change across the buildings industry. In fact, 13 of the CEOs in our 28 Established Green Building Councils are women – over 45 percent.

This is despite the fact the women often represent the small minority in the wider buildings industry. In the UK alone, the number of women in construction has actually fallen since 2008, making up just 11.2 percent of the construction workforce, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. In the EU, the figure is around 12 percent.

Here’s a list of the women who are leading our Established Green Building Councils.

  • Romilly Madew, Chief Executive, Green Building Council of Australia
  • Ines Reiter, Managing Director, Austrian Sustainable Building Council 
  • Cristina Gamboa, CEO, Colombia Green Building Council
  • Snježana Turalija, Executive Director, Green Building Council of Croatia
  • Christine Lemaitre, Managing Director, DGNB
  • Annemarie van Doorn, Managing Director, Dutch Green Building Council
  • Sabine de Pellegar, CEO, France GBC
  • Ala’a Abdullah, Team Leader, Jordan Green Building Council
  • Alex Cutler, Chief Executive, New Zealand Green Building Council
  • Francesca Mayer Martinelli, CEO, Peru Green Building Council
  • Alicja Kuczera, CEO, Polish Green Building Council
  • Yvonne Soh, Executive Director, Singapore Green Building Council
  • Julie Hirigoyen, Chief Executive, UK Green Building Council

There are more female CEOs in our Emerging and Prospective Green Building Councils, and WorldGBC’s CEO Terri Wills is a woman.

Green Building Councils are transforming the sustainability of buildings around the world, certifying and renovating thousands of green buildings, educating professionals and highlighting the role green buildings can play in meeting environmental, economic and social goals.

And there are some great initiatives that exist to champion gender equality in the global building industry: The Association of Women in Property in the UK aims to redress the imbalance of women in the industry; the Women’s Property Network in South Africa is a forum for knowledge exchange; and the Property Male Champions of Change, works to to drive greater gender equality and increase the number of women in leadership roles in the Australian property sector. 

We’d like to hear about the women driving change at all levels of the construction and building industry around the world.

Tweet us at @WorldGBC using the International Women’s Day hashtag #IWD2016.