Empowering women to act against energy poverty in the Mediterranean

Women and women-led households are disproportionately affected by energy poverty. Due to labour division, women tend to spend more time working at home and thus are more exposed to energy poverty and its consequences. Generally, there is a higher share of women who are at risk of poverty and social exclusion than men. Yet, women play a crucial role in tackling energy poverty, hence their engagement in acting against energy poverty is of utmost importance.

In the coastal areas of European Mediterranean countries, the challenge of energy poverty comes with several specific features, including lack of access to adequately cooled dwellings (during the summer) or to expensive electricity-based heating (in the cold season). Other issues are poor insulation, poor building maintenance and overall economic difficulties - often exacerbated by a gap between poor housing conditions for residents and tourists‘ demand for housing.

In order to address these challenges, the Horizon2020 project EmpowerMed – Empowering women to take action against energy poverty in the Mediterranean – aimed to contribute to energy poverty alleviation and to the health improvement of affected people in the coastal areas of Mediterranean countries, with a particular focus on women. The project mainly implemented practical solutions to empower people affected by energy poverty to manage their energy consumption and improve their access to appropriate domestic energy sources and technologies. On the basis of this practical experience, the project assessed the impacts of various practical energy poverty alleviation measures tested to formulate policy solutions for tackling energy poverty at the local, national and EU level.

The project results are available on the project's website and a final report presents useful evidence and knowledge gathered from the project.