This publication is the fourth in a series of practical Cedefop skills anticipation guides for policymakers, analysts, and expert professionals. The three previous guides presented a rich mosaic of conventional and emerging methods for identifying technological change and its impact on skills. They assessed the merits and challenges of using skills forecasts, big data, and technology and skills foresight, and provided practical insight into how these methods can best be used. This fourth practical guide has a thematic rather than a methodological focus and zooms in on skills intelligence and VET for the green transition. Becoming climate neutral and sustainable requires a thorough economic transformation with impacts on employment and jobs. While skills intelligence has become ‘greener’ and more suited to reflecting on such impacts, translating it into VET policy and skilling measures can be challenging.

The guide aims at demonstrating the value of sound skills intelligence and smart governance in the context of the green transition and at showcasing how VET can make a difference in practice. It explains how skills anticipation and governance approaches can become drivers of greening and how apprenticeship, up- and reskilling, validation and microcredentials can be leveraged on the way towards a greener future. Good practice examples from all over Europe and beyond illustrate what it takes to go from green ambitions for VET and skills to policy implementation.