UNEVOC Connect

The “greening” of occupations refers to the extent to which green economy activities and technologies increase the demand for existing occupations, shape the work and worker requirements needed for occupational performance, or generate unique work and worker requirements.

See also:

• Green Increased Demand Occupations
• Green Enhanced Skills Occupations
• New and Emerging Green Occupations

Occupations where a process of greening will result in:

• an increase in demand for existing jobs and skills, without significant changes in work or worker requirements (e.g. construction operatives for insulation work or bus and coach drivers);
• significant changes in tasks and skills for existing job roles (e.g. vehicle technicians for work on electrical vehicles or construction managers to apply new green building strategies); or
• new and emerging job roles with unique green skill areas (e.g. management consultants focused on sustainability issues or marketing professionals focused on green marketing).

Green occupations can be defined as occupations in which green tasks are used, i.e. tasks that are environmentally beneficial or related to sustainability.

The term “green” should be considered a continuum rather than a binary characteristic.

Some green occupations are nascent and driven by new technological applications. Others evolve from green economic activity in an existing part of the economy. We can describe this “greening” of occupations by the extent to which green technologies and economic activity:

• increase the demand for existing occupations;
• shape the work and worker requirements needed for occupational performance;
• generate unique worker requirements.