| 75th Anniversary Back then I was surrounded by men – engineers
and technicians – who respected me despite my non- engineering background. They frequently helped me learn the level of technology I had to master to help my understanding and communication with others. My current work focuses on gender in hydropower but in those days, there simply were no women in technical functions. The only women were typists, secretaries, or office clerks, and maybe a few in commercial roles. When I was promoted to head of communications for the hydro division I did meet more women in comparable ranks, and over time more came in through IT. This movement has been very slow until today, although women are still found much more in commercial, communication, and HR functions than in engineering.
Wake-up call The hydro industry has experienced turbulent times.
In the past the hydro sector was more or less under attack for its larger projects, mainly by NGOs for not committing to social and environmental rights. Political influence was also exerted in company headquarters in European countries, with the projects implemented in Asia or Africa or South America. In North America, the licensing and re-licensing of hydropower plants underwent a dramatic change with a heap of rules and regulations. Here, even re-licensing sometimes would take around ten years. Worst of all – but also a tremendous wake-up call – was the World Commission on Dams’ report in 2000. Its results and recommendations threatened the sector with a moratorium for any new hydro development. This was the time when the International Hydropower Association was founded as the industry association and tasked with finding solutions. The multi-stakeholder process undertaken since then has been a success, resulting in a protocol to measure the sustainability of hydropower projects, which has since evolved into a strict Hydro Sustainability Standard.
Looking to the future The possibility to assess and prove the sustainability of
a project using a solid standard makes life easier for all players involved – important financial or export-related institutions now view hydropower as an option again for responsible project planning and implementation. And the companies within the sector have learned to seek common ground with NGOs, but also recognise the need to assess the sustainability risks of a project for their own benefit – in the same way that they assess commercial and technical risks. In addition, I have seen an increase in young people and women coming into the sector during the last couple of years again; they were still not so prevalent when I took early retirement ten years ago. I had long felt that the sector was attracting fewer talents and engineers than in earlier times. Still, the competition for the best of talents across renewable energy technologies will create even more capacity issues, in terms of numbers of people as well as the education they come in with, and more will have to be trained. For this reason alone, the sector must change its attitude and increase its attractiveness to younger people, especially women. Most companies have now recognised the benefits of diversity, but they still have some way to go to achieve gender equality.
Key lessons
For me, as a woman, the advice I would give to others is to: encourage yourself and other females to stand up, raise your hand and your voice, network for your benefits and make yourself seen. Nobody will promote you if you have not been visible in meetings and presentations. Nobody really helped me to progress here a lot, so I simply took responsibility for my own path, but would often have wished for a mentor. Today I have taken this lesson on board to mentor and coach younger women and to encourage them to go their own ways and pursue what they want to achieve. It’s also important to ask about and clarify any hidden agendas or bias that are encountered. In my own job interview in 1980 I was told to also take
care of guests arriving at the office. Since I had worked in an assistant-secretarial role before and had different expectations of what this job should be, I wanted to make myself clear. I said: “I will not do these three things – make coffee, water flowers, or wear a skirt if I don’t feel like wearing one!” The two guys – one of them my boss- to-be – laughed their heads off. I got the job.
Always in hydro I have a motto for the industry that I’ve worked in for
so long myself – without the intention of doing so in the beginning: “Once in hydro, always in hydro”. Even though I widened my perspective with the foundation of the Global Women’s Network for the Energy Transition (GWNET) in 2017, I am still attached to the sector. I recently helped to develop a study for ESMAP/
World Bank on Gender Equality in Hydropower and co-founded a network for Women in Sustainable Hydropower (WISH). I’m also working on the COST initiative on Pan-European Sustainable Hydropower, where we are in the process of building up mentoring for women. Last, but not least, I am serving in the industry chamber of the Sustainability Standard governance structure and am still closely involved with the Hydropower Sustainability Alliance (HSA).
Right: Barbara Fischer-Aupperle looks back over her hydropower career. In the early days she says she was surrounded by male engineers and technicians who respected her despite her non- engineering background. However, looking to the future, she believes the sector must change its attitude and increase its attractiveness to women and younger people
www.waterpowermagazine.com | May 2024 | 39 Above: Site visit to Iceland in 2012
Below: View of Three Gorges project in China was one of the projects where Fischer-Aupperle says the industry pushed the boundaries of what was possible in terms of machine size and performance capacity
Below (middle): At a foundry in 2009
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