Despite their enormous potential to drive solutions for climate change, food insecurity, and poverty, women’s groups often lack the resources and recognition needed to scale their efforts. This gap inspired Jeannette Gurung, Executive Director at Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (WOCAN), to create a framework that provides direct revenue streams to women.

That framework is the W+ Standard—the first certification system designed to measure, verify, and monetize women’s empowerment.

The Origins of the W+ Standard

The W+ Standard was developed in collaboration with women in rural Kenya and Nepal. Built with their realities in mind, it ensures that women’s contributions to sustainable development are visible, valued, and rewarded.

At its core, the framework provides metrics and procedures to quantify, verify, and monetize women’s empowerment outcomes. This allows buyers, investors, and project developers to ensure that climate finance doesn’t just reduce emissions, but also transforms lives.

What the Framework Measures

The W+ Standard covers six domains of women’s empowerment:

• Time
• Health
• Education & Knowledge
• Food Security
• Income & Assets
• Leadership

By applying these measurable indicators, projects can prove social impact alongside climate impact—building confidence and transparency in the carbon market.

Highlights from the GLF Live Conversation

During this GLF Live session, listeners heard from:

• Jeannette Gurung – Executive Director of WOCAN, leading global efforts to strengthen women’s leadership in climate and natural resource management.
• Hannah Simmons – Founder and CEO of Ecosystem Regeneration Associates (ERA), a female-driven carbon project developer based in Brazil, recognized for pioneering conservation work in the Cerrado biome.

Together, they explored how the W+ Standard is shifting the landscape of climate finance by making women’s empowerment quantifiable, verifiable, and investable.

Why This Matters

The inclusion of women’s empowerment in climate finance is more than a co-benefit—it is a prerequisite for achieving global goals. When women have access to resources and recognition:

• Communities become more resilient to climate impacts.
• Food systems strengthen.
• Poverty cycles break.

By embedding women’s empowerment into carbon projects, the W+ Standard ensures that climate finance delivers high-quality, high-integrity outcomes.

Listen Back

Couldn’t join live? Watch the full conversation here:

🎥 GLF Live Recording on YouTube

Call to Action (H2)

The W+ Standard is opening doors for women to directly benefit from climate finance. Explore how your organization can get involved—whether as a project developer, investor, or buyer of W+ certified credits.

👉 Learn more about the W+ Standard

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