Greener Skills and Jobs for a Low-Carbon Future
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OECD Green Growth Papers 2013-10 Greener Skills and Jobs for a Low-Carbon Future www.oecd.org/greengrowth November 2013 OECD GREEN GROWTH PAPERS The OECD Green Growth Strategy, launched in May 2011, provides concrete recommendations and measurement tools to support countries’ efforts to achieve economic growth and development, while at the same time ensure that natural assets continue to provide the ecosystems services on which our well-being relies. The strategy proposes a flexible policy framework that can be tailored to different country circumstances and stages of development. OECD Green Growth Papers complement the OECD Green Growth Studies series, and aim to stimulate discussion and analysis on specific topics and obtain feedback from interested audiences. The papers are generally available only in their original language, English, with a summary in the other if available. OECD Green Growth Papers are published on www.oecd-ilibrary and are also available at www.oecd.org/greengrowth Please cite this paper as Cristina Martinez-Fernandez[i], Antonio Ranieri [ii] and Samantha Sharpe [iii] (2013), “Greener Skills and Jobs for a Low-Carbon Future”, OECD Green Growth Papers, 2013-10, OECD Publishing, Paris. © OECD 2013 Applications for permission to reproduce or translate all or part of this material should be made to: OECD Publishing, [email protected]. [i] OECD, LEED Programme, France [ii] European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP) [iii] University of Technology Sydney, Australia FOREWORD Foreword In February 2012, policy makers, researchers, experts from international organisations and academia met in Paris to debate the role of “green skills” in moving towards a low-carbon future. The 2012 Green Skills Forum was organised jointly by the OECD and Cedefop and this volume collects the papers from participants. The Forum raised policy makers’ and stakeholders’ awareness of the need to integrate skills strategies in order to succeed in the transition to a low-carbon economy. Such strategies include measures for more flexible and dynamic education and training programmes at local, sectoral and regional levels. Green skills are those skills needed to adapt products, services and processes to climate change and the related environmental requirements and regulations. They will be needed by all sectors and at all levels in the workforce. Demand for green skills is driven by a range of factors, including public policies and targets, and defined by three main trends: i) across occupations and industries, greening requires upgrading skills and adjusting qualification requirements; ii) new or emerging economic activities create new or renewed occupations and related qualifications and skills profiles; and iii) structural changes create a need to realign sectors that will decline as a result of the greening of the economy and retrain workers accordingly. Understanding and quantifying the industrial and spatial impact of economic transformations is paramount and is at the heart of efforts to analyse skills needs in a low- carbon economy. Underestimating the role of skills and related education and training policies in the ecological transformation risks creating negative trade-offs between environmental and employment goals. The successful transition to a low-carbon economy will only be possible by ensuring that workers are able to adapt and transfer from areas of decreasing employment to other industries and that human capital exists and is maximised to develop new industries. This publication pays particular attention to how these changes play out in SMEs, which have less awareness of the technological and operational adaptations required by a low-carbon development than larger enterprises and which exhibit low provision of training and skills development opportunities. Policy implications emerging from the Forum underline the need to better co-ordinate policy and involve social partners and educational institutions in the governance of change; identify, assess and create green skills to maximise all social, environmental and economic promises of a low-carbon economy; and focus on developing strategic capacity in small and medium-sized enterprises and support them in integrating green skills transformations into their business strategies. The OECD and Cedefop will pursue their joint efforts to increase policy makers’ and stakeholders’ awareness of the changes and requirements brought about by the development of greener and sustainable economies. In 2014, our organisations will renew their successful collaboration to organise a second Green Skills Forum entitled “Green skills and innovation for employment growth”. Yves Leterme Christian F. Lettmayr Deputy Secretary-General of the OECD Acting Director, Cedefop GREENER SKILLS AND JOBS FOR A LOW-CARBON FUTURE © OECD 2013 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Acknowledgements This publication resulted from the OECD-Cedefop Green Skills Forum 2012, which was held on 27 February 2012 in Paris, France and brought together academics, policy makers and international organisations with the specific aim of analysing and drawing lessons from the impacts of the green economy on skills development and training policies. The European Commission, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion supported this publication. We would like to thank all of the speakers who contributed papers to the Forum. In particular, we acknowledge the contribution of the keynote speakers Yves Leterme, Deputy Secretary-General, OECD and Pascaline Descy, Head of Area Research and Policy Analysis, Cedefop; session chairs: Paul Ekins, University College of London; Petra Schwager, UNIDO; Robert Strauss, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, European Commission; Sergio Arzeni, OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs and Local Development (CFE); and the session discussants: Ray Pinto, Microsoft Europe, Middle East and Africa; Roland Schneider, Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC); Lucia Cusmano, OECD CFE; Paul Swaim, Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs, OECD; and Wolfgang Mueller, German Federal Employment Agency. Cristina Martinez-Fernandez, from the OECD Local Economic and Employment Development Programme; Antonio Ranieri, from Cedefop; and Samantha Sharpe, from the University of Technology Sydney acted as editors for this publication. Melissa Telford and Jennifer Allain proofread the report. Emma Tynan, Elisa Campestrin and Francois Iglesias (OECD LEED), Reka Mazur (OECD ENV), and Roula Panagiotou (Cedefop) provided administrative and technical support for the publication. GREENER SKILLS AND JOBS FOR A LOW-CARBON FUTURE © OECD 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of contents Chapter 1 Green skills for a low-carbon future ........................................................................ 9 Labour market dynamics of greening economies .................................................................... 11 Are green jobs good jobs?........................................................................................................ 14 Green skills and why they are important ................................................................................. 14 Greening skills in SMEs .......................................................................................................... 16 Policy response to green skills ................................................................................................. 19 About this publication .............................................................................................................. 23 Notes ........................................................................................................................................ 24 References ................................................................................................................................ 25 Part I: Gearing up education for training and growth .......................................................... 27 Chapter 2 The case for a global green skills training action plan .......................................... 29 The case for a global green skills training action plan ............................................................. 30 The EU Agenda for New Skills and Jobs ................................................................................ 30 The G20 Training Strategy: A replicable template for the green skills agenda? ..................... 31 Technical change and the green economy: Outlining the challenges ...................................... 32 Applying the G20 Training Strategy in support of the green transition .................................. 33 Policy recommendations .......................................................................................................... 38 Note .......................................................................................................................................... 39 References ................................................................................................................................ 39 Chapter 3 The New Skills for Green Jobs Project: European context .................................. 41 European Union policies for a sustainable green economy ..................................................... 42 The new skills paradigm: Implications for education and training policies ............................ 42 What do we mean by green jobs? ............................................................................................ 44 Identifying sectors