Care for our environment is built into everything we do at Glasgow Women’s Library, from micro considerations around making sure our space is warm and welcoming, to a wider care for our surrounding area, and a concern for planetary health and justice. As an equalities-focussed organisation we understand the connections between structures of inequality and systems that are harmful to our shared environment; communities with less power, both locally and globally, are disproportionately impacted by climate change, despite contributing the least to its causes. In the face of this injustice we also believe that these communities have the knowledge and resourcefulness to be leading voices in climate action and that by coming together for action we can envision different, more just relationships with our environment.

This understanding leads us to be active on a number of registers. In our building we are working towards reaching operational net zero by 2030 and have commissioned and are implementing a phased plan of building improvements laid out in our Net Zero Handbook to support this aim. Outside our physical space we are committed to collaborating with local communities and like minded partner organisations to plant trees and design more biodiverse environments. In delivering all aspects of our work we look for local, ethically positioned and sustainable suppliers whilst championing pioneering women and non-binary activists on the global stage. Besides highlighting inspiring activists in our programme and collection, we work as often as possible with writers, artists and creatives to expand the ways we imagine environmental care and find hopeful ways to go forward as a collective.

Connected Pages

Our Net-Zero Handbook

Our Net-Zero Handbook is a practical plan setting out the changes we will make to our building to reach “operational net zero” by 2030.

Women on the Wall

Women on the Wall is a new fundraising initiative to help us in our ongoing work towards building a sustainable, green future.

GWL at 30 Podcast: Green

In this episode we find out more about how ecofeminism and care for the environment have impacted our work in the past three decades.

Women in the Landscape

Where you are, where you’ve been, where you grew up . . . how has it shaped who you are? How have you shaped the places you’ve been, where you’ve lived and passed through? Seeking out and sharing women’s words, inspired and borne out of both rural and urban landscapes across Scotland and beyond, the Glasgow Women’s Library Women in the Landscape project aims to reveal, to celebrate and to preserve women’s stories, experiences and environmental heritage.

Open the Door 2020

For 2020, Open the Door had a special focus on environmental and ecofeminist ideas. Women have written extensively, both factually and creatively, about the world around them and the landscapes that we shape and that have shaped us. We used this festival as an opportunity to celebrate these words and highlight the importance of thinking widely about our environment and our changing world.

Download: GWL Environmental Policy

We recognise that global climate change has serious consequences, and that its detrimental effects are disproportionately experienced by women. We believe that individuals, organisations, agencies and institutions must have a clear and embedded focus on environmental issues to redress the negative impact of climate change.

This policy sets out how we put this into practice.