SE Advisory Services' Mireille Meneses Campos: 'Visibility matters, but it is not the end of the journey'

BusinessGreen: What was your first role in the green economy and what attracted you to the sector?

Mireille Meneses Campos: What attracted me was not the environment, it was the law. Studying international trade, I discovered through Moot Courts and WTO simulations that resolving environmental disputes requires understanding ecosystems, geographies, and communities, not just rules. While studying abroad, a professor introduced me to the different mechanisms for pricing carbon and I was hooked, so I ended up writing my dissertation on carbon border adjustment mechanisms in 2012.

My first role in the green economy was at Mexico's Ministry of Environment (SEMARNAT) where I supported the Paris Agreement negotiations, developed triangular cooperation strategies with Latin American countries on NDCs, and provided policy recommendations on capacity building and technology transfer across the region. Seeing climate policy from inside a developing country government shaped everything that came after.

In what ways have the women you work with inspired you, or helped shape your career?

Two women shaped the foundation of who I am professionally. The first became my boss at SEMARNAT after I met her through the student mobility programme. She taught me collaboration, diplomacy, humility, and to allow myself to make mistakes. The second was my international trade law professor, the reason I did not drop out of law school. She made the subject so alive that leaving became impossible. I owe her the career I have now. Both women thrived visibly, and that visibility made my own path feel possible.

What makes delivering diversity and tackling gender inequities so crucial to the net zero transition?

Let's bring some numbers. Climate change could push up to 158 million more women and girls into extreme poverty by 2050. Women hold only 18 per cent of energy sector leadership roles, and fewer than 40 per cent of countries integrate gender equality into national climate plans. This shows a gap between those who bear the risk and those who make the decisions. Sadly, this is a fundamental design flaw. The net zero transition will only work if it is built with the full range of human experience and talent. For example, carbon projects have direct consequences for communities dependent on women's labour and knowledge and if those women are absent from decision-making rooms, the solutions will reflect that absence. Diversity should not be seen as a side initiative but part of the infrastructure the transition requires.

What have been the biggest signs of progress in increasing the participation and retention of women in the green economy so far?

Participation is clearly improving but there is more to be done on reaching decision-making power. Women now hold 32 per cent of full-time renewable energy jobs, and female representation across UNFCCC constituted bodies has reached 40 per cent. At COP28, women represented 34 per cent of national delegates but led only 19 per cent of delegations. The conversation in carbon markets has moved beyond whether women belong and is now focused on how we enable more women to lead. Networks, mentorship programmes, and industry events have created visibility that did not exist when I started working in this space a decade ago. Visibility is the key to retention because when a young woman sees someone who looks like her in a senior role, the path feels possible in a way that no policy can replicate.

What more needs to be done to ensure the green economy is a place women feel they can build long, successful, careers – and ultimately take the lead?

The motherhood penalty, the sponsorship gap, and the lack of investment in reskilling are three issues that must be addressed.

Women return from parental leave to an organisation that has continued moving without them, and reintegration is often treated as something the woman must navigate alone. Organisations must take responsibility for that transition.

Women also need senior people who will advocate for them and speak about their potential when they are not in the room. Mentoring matters, but advice alone does not move careers forward, sponsorship is what opens doors. Finally, the green economy is built on jobs that do not yet exist. Giving women the opportunity to retrain and move across disciplines is not just good for retention, it is how we build the workforce the transition actually needs. How you make the green economy a space where a non-linear career path is a strength, not a liability.

What do you feel is the most common mistake stakeholders in the green economy are making in their efforts to increase the participation and retention of women?

The most common mistake is treating representation as a number rather than inclusion as a structural issue. A woman can appear on a panel or feature in a campaign, yet still be absent from the rooms where investment, strategy, and leadership decisions are made. Yes, visibility matters, but it is not the end of the journey. Meaningful inclusion means access to decision-making, progression, and power. We also need to stop making women responsible for fixing the inequality they experience; the structural conditions need to change, not the women navigating them.

What do you feel is working well – what does the green economy need more of?

What I find most encouraging is the strength of the networks being built among women in the green economy. These platforms create connection, build confidence, and make visible what is possible. What we need more of is active sponsorship, transparent progression, accountable leadership, and workplaces designed to retain women through different stages of their careers. Progression for women is not linear so designing for that reality should become common practice.

What steps is SE Advisory Services taking to tackle gender inequalities and increase the participation and retention of women in the green economy?

We recognise that women are often on the front line of climate change impacts, and therefore their knowledge, priorities, and leadership are essential to designing effective and equitable climate solutions. This is what meaningful participation means to us at SE Advisory Services, and our three flagship projects in Kenya and India demonstrate what that looks like in practice.

In Jiko Sawa (Kenya), women helped shape the project from the outset, manufacture the cookstoves, hold coordination roles, and serve as community ambassadors. In Hifadhi (Kenya), 120,000 cookstoves have been distributed through women's empowerment groups across two phases. And in Sundari (India), where most household income traditionally came from men working outside the community, the project guarantees at least 50% female employment in nursery setup, mangrove plantation, and monitoring activities. Over a hundred women have already benefited from independent income for the first time.

For us, meaningful participation means women helping design climate solutions, earning from them, and increasingly shaping the decisions that affect their communities.

What steps would you encourage men working in the green economy to take to tackle day-to-day gender inequities and make workplaces more inclusive?

Use your access, your voice, and your platform. If you are invited onto a panel and the lineup is all male, say so and suggest a replacement. Ask who benefits when event and training decisions are made, and whether women are included by default or as an afterthought. Advocate for people who cannot advocate for themselves, without waiting to be asked. And do not make women responsible for educating you. Pause and listen, we need allies who are genuinely willing to hear us.

How important is it to bring key stakeholders, policy makers, and sustainability executives together to celebrate the role of women in the green economy at events like the Women in Green Business Awards?

Recognition accelerates careers, but that is just one part of the story. Events like the Women in Green Business Awards make achievement visible in a room full of people who can act on it. A conversation over dessert can open a door that years of quiet, excellent work could not. Women have historically been excluded from the networks where those conversations happen, so celebrating women's achievements is an act of standard-setting.

How important is it that the next generation of women in the green economy have role models to look up to?

I almost dropped out of law school because I could not see how my degree would ever connect to conservation and nature. I found my way eventually, but I did it without a blueprint. Role models are proof of possibility, and for women from developing countries, from non-traditional backgrounds, that proof is still very rare. We need sponsors that show us the way so we can help light the path for the next generations.

What are you most looking forward to from attending the Women in Green Business Awards? What do you hope to take away from the event?

Honestly, the stories. You can read anyone's LinkedIn profile and know their job title and opinions, but what you cannot get is the backstory: the moment someone nearly quit, the door that was closed, the choice nobody else saw. Every woman in that room will have come from somewhere different and struggled with something different. Some will be mothers. Some will have made a different choice. None of that appears on a speaker bio. I want to leave with a story that stays with me. That is what I am going for.

What parts of the green economy are you most excited about?

What excites me, though I must admit it is a complicated one, is that we can no longer afford to leave adaptation as an afterthought. It is not just a business decision anymore. It is simply negligent not to act. After the extreme weather events of 2026, the wildfires, floods, and droughts, I hope we have reached the point where adaptation is treated as urgently as mitigation. We have spent years betting on technologies that do not yet exist, arguing about whether climate change is real, and questioning the integrity on nature-based solutions. Recent events have settled that argument for us as people are impacted. I hope what we are living through accelerates the shift from a dollar value on carbon to a genuine reckoning with what climate change costs in human terms.

What is the biggest misconception about the green economy?

That being green means planting trees and switching to recycled paper. Those things are not wrong, but they are not the green economy. The green economy is about energy transition, energy access, economic transformation, and fundamentally rethinking how we produce, consume, and distribute value. It is complex and requires structural changes. Younger generations are not fooled by green credentials without substance. They are questioning what companies stand for in a world experiencing climate anxiety at a scale we have not seen before. Companies that treat the green economy as a marketing opportunity are misreading the room and, ultimately, their own customers.

What do you feel are the biggest opportunities from the net zero transition?

The real prize is a transition that does not reproduce the inequalities of the economy it replaces. We have a unique opportunity to decide who participates, who benefits, and who leads. If we get it right, we will deliver not just a lower carbon economy but a fairer and more resilient one that genuinely redirects private capital to the communities that need it most, rather than only to the projects that are easiest to make bankable. When we demand investment returns above all else, we are putting a dollar figure on livelihoods that have been undervalued for generations. The biggest opportunity is to stop doing that, to listen to communities, and build something that works for the people implementing it on the ground.

What would your green superpower be?

My green superpower is perspective. I am from Mexico, a place that teaches you to hold contradiction, to see multiple realities simultaneously, to find logic in what others call surreal. That instinct is essential in carbon markets, where the same project looks completely different depending on whether you are the policymaker, the developer, the government, or the buyer. I have sat in all of those chairs, part lawyer, part diplomat, part adviser, and I have learned that most problems in carbon markets are not technical. They are translation problems. Being able to bridge disciplines and perspectives, without losing sight of what the market is actually for, is what I bring to every room I enter.

SE Advisory Services sponsors the Women in Green Business Awards 2026, which take place on the evening of Wednesday 7th October at the Marriott London Grosvenor Square.