Based on the vision of the Nordic Council of Ministers that the Nordic Region will be the most sustainable and integrated in the world by 2030, a cross-sectoral programme for sustainable living is being implemented in 2021-2024. That includes projects on sustainable cultural events, increased use of the Nordic Swan ecolabel, education for sustainable living, sustainable food systems, gender aspects of green transition and young people’s perspectives. The latter two are conducted by Nordic Information on Gender (NIKK) and Nordregio respectively. In the course of the projects, synergies were identified, leading to the study whose results are presented in this report.
The mission was to identify and discuss patterns in young people’s engagement in the field of sustainable development, regarding gender and other categories, as well as to provide examples of how environmental organisations for young people relate to those patterns when it comes to inclusion and campaigning. For that purpose, various sources of empirical material were used.
To investigate how various organisations have chosen to work on gender, equality and diversity within their organisation or in their outward-facing activities, a search was done for policy documents and reports, which through close reading formed a knowledge base for the study. Interviews were conducted with representatives of six organisations in the five Nordic countries, namely Frej (Denmark), the Finnish Agenda 2030 Youth Group (Finland), the Icelandic Young Environmentalist Association (Iceland), Spire (Norway), Future Minds (Sweden) and ReGeneration 2030 (based in Åland, with members in the Nordic and Baltic countries). The organisations are intentionally of different types, namely grassroots organisations with numerous members, networks whose members are also active in other organisations, idea-based and nonprofit enterprises, as well as committee-like groups initiated and recruited by the government. The interviewees also included individuals with experience of activism in the scope of Fridays for Future and similar movements.
Furthermore, a workshop/focus group was held on 13 August 2023 in Mariehamn, Åland during ReGeneration Week, the biggest annual youth sustainability event in the Nordic and Baltic Sea region, organised by ReGeneration 2030 Network. The author of this report also participated as an observer in the Nordic youth conference titled “Youth Empowerment in Climate Action: Ensuring Gender Equality and a Fair Transition in the Triple Planetary Crisis”, which was held by the National Council of Swedish Youth (LSU), together with UN Women and the Nordic Council of Ministers, in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 27 October 2023. Of particular interest was a workshop on the topic of “Just and Inclusive Transition”.
Finally, based on the conclusions of the aforementioned focus group, a survey was sent out to board members of national youth councils in the Nordic countries (the Danish Youth Council, DUF, the Finnish National Youth Council, Alliansi, the National Youth Council of Iceland, LUF, the Norwegian Children and Youth Council, LNU and the National Council of Swedish Youth, LSU), as well as the youth councils’ member organisations. When the survey closed on 12 April 2024, a total of 218 responses had been received, with fairly even representation from among the five Nordic countries.
The following section outlines the background to the issue of gender patterns in young people’s involvement in sustainability and climate issues, with references to research and other literature.