Here is a statistic that should reframe the entire climate conversation: countries where women hold higher social and political status have, on average, 12 percent lower carbon dioxide emissions.

That is not a projection. It is not a theory. It is a finding, documented across dozens of countries and published in peer reviewed research. A 2019 study in the journal Sustainable Development by Lv and Deng found that a one unit increase in the Women's Political Empowerment Index corresponded with an 11.5 percent decrease in national carbon emissions. In India, a study from UC San Diego found that districts with female leaders saw a 13 percent reduction in crop burning and a 40 percent drop in the resulting particulate matter. In community forestry, the economist Bina Agarwal documented that forests managed by groups with a high proportion of women showed significantly better regeneration rates and canopy growth, even when those forests started out smaller and more degraded.

The pattern holds across scale. When women lead, environmental outcomes improve. Not slightly. Measurably. Consistently. Across cultures, across continents, across sectors.

And yet — only 15 percent of environment ministers worldwide are women. Women make up roughly a third of staff in infrastructure and energy ministries. At UN climate negotiations, men speak 74 percent of the time. Of all philanthropic dollars globally, just 2 percent go to environmental causes, and within that sliver, women's organizations receive a fraction of a fraction.

One organization based in Berkeley, California, has spent nearly two decades working to close that gap. Women's Earth Alliance (WEA) is a global nonprofit that partners with grassroots women leaders to accelerate community driven environmental solutions. Founded in 2006 by Amira Diamond and Melinda Kramer, WEA has catalyzed more than 52,000 women led environmental justice projects across 31 countries, reaching over 24 million people with clean water, clean energy, regenerative agriculture, and climate adaptation. Its model is built on a simple premise: women in communities around the world are already doing the environmental work. They just need the resources, training, and networks to scale it.

What does Women's Earth Alliance do?

Women's Earth Alliance was founded in 2006 by Amira Diamond and Melinda Kramer. The idea was born at a gathering of 30 women from 26 countries in Mexico City. Every one of them was already leading environmental work in her community. Every one of them was doing it without adequate funding, training, or institutional support. Diamond and Kramer did not set out to invent new environmental projects. They set out to find the women who were already doing the work and give them the resources to do it better.

That remains the model. WEA is not a top down aid organization. It partners with community based organizations around the world and runs what it calls Accelerator training programs: intensive, multi month programs that equip grassroots women leaders with skills in advocacy, entrepreneurship, technology, and organizational strategy. The women then return to their communities and scale the solutions they were already building.

The philosophy is direct. As Kramer has put it: WEA provides a powerbase for women leaders who are too often facing marginalization, persecution, and deep inequity. Many of them do not own the land they work to protect. They do not have a say in the policies that profoundly impact their lives. They do not have access to resources, training, or networks of allies. WEA changes that.

What impact has Women's Earth Alliance had?

Since 2006, WEA has catalyzed more than 52,000 women-led environmental justice projects across 31 countries. Its reach extends to more than 24 million people who have been impacted by clean water, energy access, regenerative farming practices, and climate initiatives led by WEA trained women.

The 2025 Impact Report offers a snapshot of a single year's work:

In Kenya, a WEA collaborative project advancing tree planting for climate mitigation is sequestering an average of 19 million pounds of carbon each year while also advancing food security, erosion control, and women's income through tree nursery micro enterprises. In Mexico, the Sirenas de México network — a group of women, mothers, and housewives who fish and dive to sustain their families — is working to protect marine ecosystems along the coast. In Indonesia, through a partnership with Kopernik, women micro entrepreneurs are building climate friendly businesses in Tuban and Nusa Penida. In Nigeria, WEA Regional Lead Olanike Olugboji Daramola is centering women's leadership in shaping community driven climate solutions. In the United States, WEA leaders are fighting the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure in Louisiana, defending indigenous land in the Bay Area, and advancing urban agriculture policy in California.

This is not charity. WEA says that explicitly. It is an investment in infrastructure that already exists: the knowledge, the relationships, the ingenuity of women who have been doing environmental work their entire lives without being recognized or resourced for it.

Why does women's leadership improve environmental outcomes?

The question "why focus on women?" gets asked often enough that it is worth sitting with the evidence.

When WEA trains a woman to run a tree nursery or a clean cookstove business, the returns do not stop with her. They radiate outward through the entire community.

What recognition has Women's Earth Alliance received?

In September 2024, Diamond and Kramer were named recipients of the 29th Heinz Award for the Environment, one of the most prestigious recognitions in American environmental leadership. The award, which carries an unrestricted cash prize of $250,000, honored their work creating a global network of women leading effective, impactful environmental work.

Teresa Heinz, chairman of the Heinz Family Foundation, said in the announcement that Diamond and Kramer are listening to the wisdom and insight of women living on the front lines of the climate crisis and empowering them with the resources they need to create meaningful solutions — achieving what she called life and planet saving systems change.

The recognition came on the heels of several other major partnerships. L'Oréal Paris committed to investing €10 million in women led environmental and climate projects through its partnership with WEA and Ashoka, the global social entrepreneurship network. Zara, for its 50th anniversary, collaborated with photographer Steven Meisel to produce a limited edition T shirt with 100 percent of profits supporting WEA's women led climate initiatives.

For an organization that started with 30 women in a room in Mexico City, the trajectory is remarkable. But Diamond and Kramer would be the first to say that the recognition belongs to the leaders on the ground — the women in Kenya running tree nurseries, the women in Mexico protecting coral reefs, the women in Indonesia selling clean cookstoves, the women in Louisiana standing up to petrochemical expansion. WEA's role is to make their work visible and to make sure they are never alone in it.

Why this matters to us

Essential Oxygen is a woman owned company. Our founder, Kate Linforth, built this business on the conviction that what we put into our bodies, our homes, and our planet should do no harm. That principle does not stop at the product label.

Through our Planet Positive Initiative, we make monthly donations to grassroots organizations whose work aligns with our values. Women's Earth Alliance is one of them. We believe in what they are doing, and we have supported their work with a donation because we believe that investing in women's environmental leadership is one of the highest leverage actions anyone can take for the health of the planet.

The research is clear. The results are documented. When women have resources, training, and a network of support, they protect forests, clean water, restore degraded land, build resilient food systems, and reduce carbon emissions. They do it in ways that strengthen entire communities, not just the bottom line. And they do it with an approach that centers care, collaboration, and long term thinking — qualities the climate crisis urgently needs more of.

WEA's co-founder Melinda Kramer has spoken about being inspired early in her career by Dr. Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who founded the Green Belt Movement and mobilized rural women to plant more than 51 million trees. Maathai once said that in the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground — a time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other.

Women's Earth Alliance is what that shift looks like when it takes root.

How can you support Women's Earth Alliance?

Learn more about Women's Earth Alliance at womensearthalliance.org. Read their 2025 Impact Report. Follow the stories of their leaders in Kenya, Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and the United States. If you are moved by their work, consider making a donation or joining their Giving Circle.

And the next time someone asks what the most effective thing they can do for the climate is, consider this answer: invest in a woman who already knows what to do. She just needs the resources to do it.