Leading the Change: Women Shaping a Sustainable Future

Jane Goodall. Portrait by Karen Robinson. Women make up many of the leaders in fighting climate change and promoting sustainable living. One such woman is the late Dr. Jane Goodall. Jane Goodall was born in London, United Kingdom in 1934. She began her career in wildlife conservation, in 1960 when she traveled to the Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve in what is now Tanzania. She became the first to observe chimpanzees using tools, a world-changing discovery. She founded the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977 to support research efforts on chimpanzees. The purpose of the Jane Goodall Institute shifted in the 1980s when she realized the important role that communities play in conservation. She also co-founded the Roots & Shoots program, which centers on children and young people and their impact on sustainable living, when she was approached by a group of young people with deep concerns about their environment. Today, Roots & Shoots is active in over 60 countries worldwide. Jane Goodall wrote 32 books throughout her career, with 15 of them being children’s books. Some of her famous works include In the Shadow of Man (1971), The Book of Hope (2021) and Seeds of Hope (2013). While she recognized the critical importance of timely action on climate change and sustainable development, she often spoke of her hope for the future. She had faith in young people, their communities and their passion for a sustainable future.

Greta Thurnberg. Portrait by Kushal Das. Dr. Jane Goodall passed away on October 1, 2025, at the age of 91. Her legacy lives on through the Jane Goodall Institute and Roots & Shoots, which continue her fight for a sustainable future. Another prominent female figure in the sustainability movement is Greta Thunberg. Greta Thunberg is 23 years old, born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 2003. Despite her age, she is famous for calling on world leaders to take action against climate change and other social justice issues. She entered the public eye at age 15 when she performed a solo strike outside of the Swedish Parliament. She inspired the creation of Fridays For Future, a youth movement in which students skip Friday classes to protest climate change. Fridays for Future now exists as a worldwide movement. Greta Thunberg published her first book, No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference, in 2019. Since then, she has published 2 other books, Our House Is On Fire and The Climate Book, in 2020 and 2024, respectively. In each of these novels, Thunberg inspires young people to fight for a sustainable future.

Thunberg is also famous for being an autism rights activist. Her mother, Malena Ernman, made Greta’s diagnosis with autism public in 2015. She has since revealed that she has a positive view of her diagnosis. She has ensured that the Fridays For Future movement is welcoming to autistic people despite her critics attacking her for her diagnosis. One could spend hours talking about the many women who have advanced the field of sustainability and still not even scratch the surface. Perhaps, however, the most important people in developing a sustainable future are the women in everyday society.