Gendering environmental data in urban policies - the Italian experience

As recognised in the framework of EU 2020, gender have implications for scientific knowledge and actively contributes to the production of goods and services better suited to potential markets (EU factsheet H2020). The environment has an explicit gender dimension, both in terms of biological characteristics and social/cultural factors. There are increasing calls for accounting gender in both practical and analytical terms. In this context research on Equal-eco management can help public administrations in the effort needed to address gender in technical environmental assessment and protect from unequal ways of thinking about the environmental problems too. The first step is define how environmental assessment can take into account gender and how promote the production of the needed gendered data. Indicators on urban environmental quality, used by ISPRA for the assessment of the main italian urban areas, are analysed for gender dimension. The aim of the analysis is to highlight: • What phenomena have a significative gender dimension to be assessed • What kind of data related to geneder dimension of phenomena at the urban level is available A discussion of gender dimension of indicators on urban mobility such as mortality from transport accidents and transport workforce, and sustainable mobility professional profiles is presented as a case study for further development of research. The main finding is that quite all of the topics included in the environmental assessment of urban areas is connected with gender but only few has gendered data available to be addressed. Gender mainstreaming in statistical national surveys and environmental monitoring is still needed. Rethinking the target of data production trough a gender analysis could have positive impacts also to address other forms of inclusion (sex attitude, ability/disability, ageing, religion, immigration) and really help decision making in responding to societal challenges.