Drawing on the experiences of TEA@SUNRISE and POPO, this post explores how inclusive market research can help clean energy organisations better understand and serve women customers. The insights build on the TEA Gender Support Service’s recent report ‘Powering Inclusion: Tested Approaches for a Gender-Inclusive Energy Transition’ and complement the previous blog on attracting women talent into technical roles. The TEA Gender Support Service is delivered by Value for Women.
It’s well known that women influence 70 to 80% of household spending decisions globally. What is perhaps less known is that many products, while intended to serve women (as well as men), are generally designed and rolled out without asking women customers directly whether those products work for them.
Moreover, market research in clean energy tends to be gender-blind: it often doesn’t explore the social realities that shape how women and men access and use energy. Without this research, organisations may miss the factors that make it harder for women to engage with energy services – factors like mobility constraints, lower digital access, or different household decision-making dynamics. Not looking at these barriers means the product may be designed and/or marketed in a way that doesn’t effectively reach or benefit women.
Applying a gender lens to market research
How can organisations bring women into market research – and make sure organisations don’t miss key insights and feedback from women? We explored this in our recent programme under the Transforming Energy Access Platform, in partnership with Carbon Trust. Under this program, VfW supported organisations in translating gender and inclusion commitments into practical actions that generate business and social value. One of the areas we focused on was market research – specifically, how organisations can gather and use insights from women and other underserved groups to inform decisions.
This case study illustrates that this shift is both feasible and commercially relevant.
TEA@SUNRISE: Asking better questions, earlier
TEA@SUNRISE is a global research network focused on generating evidence to support the development of next-generation solar technologies and value chains across multiple countries.
The problem TEA@SUNRISE faced was this: its research partners were about to undertake market research with an exclusive focus on technical feasibility and commercial potential; yet, they weren’t looking at the “who”: who benefits from energy access, who is excluded, and why. They had limited knowledge of how to apply gender, disability and broader social inclusion (also known as GEDSI) considerations across the research process.
To address this gap, several TEA@SUNRISE partners, including universities in India, Malaysia, South Africa and the UK, took part in inclusive market research training developed by Value for Women and the Global Disability Innovation Hub. The programme focused on embedding inclusion at each stage of research, from stakeholder mapping and question design to data collection, analysis and product design thinking.
| Inclusive market research in clean energy Inclusive market research involves designing and conducting research in a way that captures how women, persons with disabilities and other under-served groups access and use energy. It has a few key steps: Include diverse users, not only those who are easiest to reach Understand who uses energy, who pays for it, and who makes decisions Analyse how experiences differ across different user groups Apply insights to shape pricing, product/service design, marketing and delivery |
Participants reported meaningful shifts in confidence and intent to carry out inclusive market research:
- The share of participants who felt highly confident in identifying who benefits and who is excluded in energy access doubled, from 43% to 86%.
- Before the training, only 29% said they regularly used gender-disaggregated data in their research; after it, 57% said they intended to do so regularly, and all participants said they planned to use it at least occasionally going forward.
- Most also reported plans to establish more inclusive outreach mechanisms so that women and marginalised groups can contribute more equally.
Several months after the training, two research partners in Malaysia and India have integrated these considerations into the design of their current studies, including how they define stakeholders, frame research questions, and approach data analysis.
POPO: When better data changes business decisions
POPO is a data-driven distribution company that has been providing off-grid solar and clean energy products in Uganda since 2019.
POPO’s starting point reflected a common situation for many organisations seeking to reach more women customers. Women already made up a significant share of POPO’s customer base (around 45%) and were widely recognised by staff as reliable and consistent clients, particularly in making PAYGO payments.
However, despite this strong representation, the company lacked sex-disaggregated marketing data (for example, how do women and men find out about POPO products) and had limited visibility on which strategies were most effective in reaching women. As a result, marketing and customer engagement approaches remained largely gender-neutral, without tailored messaging or outreach to women. In the words of a senior team member: “We know that our most loyal customers are women, but we never intentionally engage them.”
The company had anecdotal insight into its women customers, but not the data needed for an evidence-based marketing approach. It lacked clarity on which channels were most effective in reaching women and what influenced their purchasing decisions.
With support from Value for Women, POPO took action. The company organised training for leadership and Leadership and marketing teams on inclusive marketing practices, with learnings then shared with sales and field agents across the business.
Alongside the training, the team began systematically collecting sex-disaggregated marketing data. Specifically, POPO launched a data collection tool to track a few key starter metrics:
- how women customers and leads were coming into the company,
- which products they were interested in, and
- which outreach channels were most effective.
Within three months, the company was able to confirm that women customers were coming to POPO mainly through referrals. That single finding helped POPO identify where to invest marketing effort, specifically to prioritise referrals as a key way of bringing in women customers. It also opened up opportunities to test incentive structures to encourage referrals among existing customers.
POPO is continuing to use this data to measure the effectiveness of future campaigns and to adapt its marketing materials to better reflect what women customers actually respond to.
Practical lessons for companies and investors
The experiences of TEA@SUNRISE and POPO both show the importance of a deliberate approach to how market research is designed and used in order to reach women customers more effectively.
A few practical implications stand out:
- If customer data is not collected from women, and not sex-disaggregated, the company is likely missing key insights.
- Companies benefit from practical tools and guidance to design and implement inclusive market research, including asking better questions and translating findings into action.
Supporting companies and research partners to strengthen how they gather and use inclusive data improves the quality of not just the data – but the product itself and its relevance for customers. This enhances both commercial performance and social impact.
This blog is part of a series featuring our recent report ‘Powering Inclusion: Tested Approaches for a Gender-Inclusive Energy Transition’, which shares the findings from GEDSI-lens advisory and capacity-building provided by Value for Women under the Transforming Energy Access Platform (TEA) Platform. The report outlines how organisations can translate GEDSI commitments into concrete high-impact actions that reach new customers, uncover new market opportunities and build inclusive workplaces.