Empowering women in green business
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. 'Banks would ask who is the man behind the scenes. But now I see more women in climate tech,' she said. While the situation has improved, financiers still perceive higher risks when investing in women. If a woman-owned business has a male co-founder, her ability to access credit significantly improves. This, despite global evidence that women make better borrowers.
A 2014 Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation report on the latest publicly available economic censu s revealed that 79% of women entrepreneurs in India were self-financed, with only 1.1% borrowing from financial institutions. The government recognises this gap. The 2025 Budget announcement of term loans of up to ₹2 crore to first-time SC and ST women entrepreneurs sets a good precedent in its willingness to offer credit upwards of a crore. More schemes that offer credit or term loans upwards of ₹1 crore are needed, since several green solutions are capital-intensive.
Mahi Singh, the Jaipur-based co-founder of Cancrie that converts waste into advanced nano-material for battery efficiency, revealed that there is a need to demystify and simplify access to these schemes for women to consider the government as a lender. Enabling end-to-end online access is one way. For private lending, boards of banks and investment firms can earmark a percentage of their portfolio towards green innovations and must include reporting on the percentage of credit offered to women-run green businesses in their annual reviews.
Second, women in green businesses need better-quality mentorship tailored to their specific challenges. Mentorship needs to be tangible. 'Who do we look at as role models,' asks Vanita Prasad of Revy Environmental Solutions. Women entrepreneurs highlighted initiatives such as the BRICS bootcamp, the Women Entrepreneurship Platform initiated by the NITI Aayog as useful mentorship platforms.
We need more large corporations to devote corporate social responsibility to intensive training and offer boot camps to help women reach the medium-to-large enterprise bracket. We also need more collaborations, such as the IIM-Bangalore and Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women, that offer management training, mentoring, networking, and access to capital for greater women's contribution to a green economy.
Third, tip the poor ratio of women in engineering, currently at 19.2%, by updating the engineering curricula with significant automation advances and offering scholarships. Automation means more women can now train in erstwhile literal heavy-lifting engineering roles. Renewable energy, circular economy, and biotechnology, in particular, require technology-driven solutions, and more women engineers are the foundational step. 'Women of Mettle' by Tata Steel offers scholarships to women engineers in the manufacturing sector. Large manufacturing corporations and dedicated funds are required to provide such scholarships.
To unlock India's green growth potential, we must address the barriers that women entrepreneurs face in the green economy. By fostering targeted mentorship, improving access to finance, and building trust in women-led businesses, we can ensure that more women take the lead in shaping a sustainable future. Empowering women is not just about inclusion — it is essential for achieving India's vision of a sustainable, developed nation by 2047.
Gunjan Jhunjhunwala is Programme Lead at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW). Views are personal.
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