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Why Women Will Save the World

Janine Zabel

Like a lioness, protecting her cubs, Janine Steeger has an instinct to protect the earth and her tribe.

Emotions run high when you are trying to save the planet and fight for equal rights simultaneously. Janine Steeger says she found a way to channel her anger about these issues in a positive way. Steeger combined her passion for sustainability and gender equality into a TEDx Talk in December of 2022, to share a powerful message, “Women are essential in saving the world and men are indispensable for that.”

Steeger, a respected journalist and moderator in Germany, has earned her nickname of “Green Janine,” after leaving a successful TV news career, to dedicate herself to the climate crisis. She wrote a book about it in 2020 called, Going Green-Why You Don’t Have to Be Perfect to Save the Climate.

Our chance meeting on a scenic train ride a few years back led to a friendship that has endured, despite the miles between us. We kept in touch, and I first shared her remarkable story here, after Going Green was published. She’s been on a mission to save the planet ever since, promoting green travel to protect her animal kingdom. We spoke again after her TEDx Talk, which she proudly presented in English!

Riding on the success of her first book, Steeger built a career as a moderator at sustainability events. She found herself in the minority and was fed up with the lack of diversity in the industry. She decided to take action.

“All speakers at sustainability events were men, although many female experts existed. I thought, how can I find a constructive way to change this and make a difference?”

Steeger says once again, she harnessed her anger into something positive, when she founded FutureWoman, along with Dr. Saskia Juretzek and Sandra Broschat. Now they have a group of over 200 female sustainability speakers available to make programs more diverse. Steeger and her team are proud of the progress the’ve made to close the gender gap, “Now there’s no excuse not to have equal representation at the next sustainability event.”

Steeger says many of the female speakers have become disrupters in the climate crisis to address overconsumption. Annabelle von Reutern, founded Concular, a second hand option for the construction industry, which has been a game changer. Evolena de Wilde d’Estmael launched Faircado, a browser application that serves as a sustainable shopping assistant. Steeger says, the hope is to make second hand the new trend and keep waste out of landfills.

  • How do you measure up to these disrupters?

  • What can you do to be part of the solution?

  • Start small. Buy less. Think BIG.

  • What would the lioness in you do to sustain her environment?

In 2022 Steeger answered a call from the wild again by co-authoring with Ines Imdahl, Why Women Will Save the World and Men Are Essential In Doing So. That book laid the groundwork for the subject of Steeger’s TEDx Talk, which allowed her to expand on the importance of working together, to combat the climate crisis.

“To design a good future we need the female skills equivalent to the male skills,” says Steeger, who added that “women think in complex systems with more foresight, compared to the linear thinking of men.” Empathy, emotionality and resilience are other female skills that she mentions as critical in problem solving, adding that men are essential in keeping an open mind to blend these ideas together.

“We need to be smart and use the whole power of all of these skills to save the world.”

Steeger says when we trust our emotions and harness them wisely, even the roar of anger, can yield positive results. Behaviors are changing. The gender gap is closing. Second hand is trendy. Green Janine is the FutureWoman. What changes are you making to save the world?

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