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You will find here both free stock pictures or AI-generated images of green careers to spark conversations about green labour market.

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Real newspaper headlines related to climate challenges, sustainability and changes on the green labour market

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Real newspaper headlines related to climate challenges, sustainability and changes on the green labour market

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Collection of real news headlines regarding climate change and the challenges of the future

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Green jobs are decent jobs that contribute to preserve or restore the environment, be they in traditional sectors such as manufacturing and construction, or in new, emerging green sectors such as renewable energy and energy efficiency.

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Jobs for the Green Transition: Definitions, classifications and emerging trends

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This report discusses the growing interest in green jobs and their importance in the context of the EU’s green transition. It emphasizes the need to reskill and upskill workers for a socially just transition. The concept of green jobs is not new, but various definitions and classifications have been proposed over the years, leading to analytical differences that hinder comparability. This report therefore gives an overview of ESCO Green skills labeling.

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Employment in the EU's environmental goods and services sector grew at a faster rate than the EU's overall employment rate in the last decade. It increased from 2.1% of total employment in 2010 to 2.5% in 2021, with the number of full-time equivalent employees in this sector reaching 5.2 million. This was mainly due to the creation of jobs related to renewable energy, energy efficiency and waste management. The EU aims to accelerate the green transition of its economy and become carbon neutral by 2050. This is expected to boost jobs in the EU's green economy in the coming years and therefore further increase the share of green employment in the EU economy.

Figure 1. Employment in the EU's environmental goods and services sector by domain, 2010-2021

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The European Green Deal and the Eighth Environment Action Programme (8th EAP) aim to accelerate the green transition of the European Union's (EU) economy. The EU's environmental goods and services sector, also known as the green economy, produces goods and provides services that are used for environmental protection and resource management activities.

Employment in the EU's green economy as a share of employment in the EU's whole economy increased by 0.4 percentage points (or 1.1 million full-time equivalents (FTEs)) from 2010 to 2021. This represents an increase of 25%, compared with an increase of only 7% in employment in the EU's overall economy in the same period. This shows that pursuing environmental objectives has the potential to create jobs in the EU.

By 2021, the environmental goods and services sector employed 5.2 million people (in FTEs) in the EU, accounting for about 2.5% of total EU employment. The increase in green employment between 2010 and 2021 was largely driven by an increase of 525,000 FTEs in the number of jobs related to the management of energy resources. For instance jobs related to:

producing renewable energy;

manufacturing equipment needed to generate renewable energy, such as wind turbines and photovoltaic cells;

manufacturing energy-efficient equipment;

research and development (R&D) activities;

installation, consultancy and management services.

The second largest contributor to the increase in green employment was waste management, with the number of jobs in this domain increasing by 259,000 FTEs (+24%) over the period. Employment in all other domains increased to varying degrees. Modest increases were found in the management of water (+4%), wastewater management (+10%) and other environment protection domains (+22%).

Steps taken to support the green transition will create more green employment in the EU by 2030, mainly through applying circular economy principles and moving towards a low-carbon economy. It is therefore expected that, through policies, measures and investments, green employment will account for a higher share of total employment in the EU by 2030.

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Shares of green employment in total employment increased in most EU Member States between 2014 and 2021. Exceptions were in Malta (-13%), Hungary (-13%), Romania (-12%), Finland (-8%), Latvia (-4%) and Cyprus (-1%). The largest increases were reported for Bulgaria (104%), Luxembourg (70%) and Poland (52%).

The domains accounting for most employment in the environmental economy differ between EU Member States. For example, during 2021, employment in resource management activities (i.e. management of energy and of water resources) accounted for most environmental employment in Luxembourg (81%), Sweden (77%), Finland and Estonia (66% in both countries). In contrast, employment in environmental protection activities (e.g. waste and wastewater management activities) accounted for most environmental employment in Belgium (78%), Malta (75%), and Croatia (73%).

Highest shares of green employment in total employment for 2021 were in Luxembourg and Estonia, with green jobs making up more than 5% of all jobs in these countries. Moreover, a share of close to 5% was reported for Finland and Austria. The lowest shares, of 1.5% or less, were reported for Hungary and Malta.

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Employment in the environmental goods and services sector in Europe

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Employment in the EU’s environmental goods and services sector grew at a faster rate than the EU’s overall employment rate in the last decade. It increased from 2.1% of total employment in 2010 to 2.5% in 2021, with the number of full-time equivalent employees in this sector reaching 5.2 million. This was mainly due to the creation of jobs related to renewable energy, energy efficiency and waste management. The EU aims to accelerate the green transition of its economy and become carbon neutral by 2050. This is expected to boost jobs in the EU’s green economy in the coming years and therefore further increase the share of green employment in the EU economy.

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Online job ads: what skills are trending?

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The latest release, featuring data from the second quarter of 2024, introduces new dashboards focused on green and digital skills, such as renewable energy and related occupations, and greenness and green pervasiveness in professions.

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Labour market effects of greening the economy

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Most OECD countries have set ambitious targets to become carbon neutral by 2050. Progress towards these targets requires a substantial shift in economic activity, which in turn calls for a reallocation of labour and capital, from “high-polluting” sectors, firms, and activities towards more neutral or climate-friendly ones. While the effects of climate change policies on employment are predicted to be modest in aggregate, they will vary significantly across sectors and population groups.

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All official European Union website addresses are in the europa.eu domain.

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Introduction to the Wall-E movie, useful as a prompt for discussion about ecology with children.

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WALL-E opening scene in HD quality. DropFilm pt. (1/5)

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Skills-OVATE offers detailed information on the jobs and skills employers demand based on online job advertisements (OJAs) in 32 European countries. It is possible to explore the trends on the labour market related to green transition.

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Skills-OVATE offers detailed information on the jobs and skills employers demand based on online job advertisements (OJAs) in 32 European countries. It is powered by Cedefop's and Eurostat's joint work in the context of the Web Intelligence Hub. Please visit the project page to find out the latest news and publications in the OJA work.

In Skills-OVATE you can access information based on millions of OJAs collected from thousands of sources, including private job portals, public employment service portals, recruitment agencies, online newspapers and corporate websites.

To show up-to-date labour market and skills trends, Skills-OVATE presents data for the last 4 available quarters and is updated four times a year. Yearly averages for key variables are available via Cedefop's skills intelligence platform.

Based on the Memorandum of understanding between Cedefop and the European Labour Authority in close coordination with Eurostat's Web Intelligence Hub, Skills OVATE presents analytics of EURES vacancies.
About classifications
Skills-OVATE provides information on occupations, skills and regions based on international classifications: ISCO-08 for occupations, NACE rev. 2 for sectors and NUTS-2 for regions. There are two ways to display information on skills: via ESCO version 1 or O*Net.
About time series
The Skills OVATE dashboards do not contain all the job advertisements we collect. Many online job ads portals do not provide a stable data feed over time; to ensure we offer comparable time series, job ads from these portals are excluded from Skills OVATE.
Access to the data
The data access is organised by Eurostat. For any details, please contact the Web Intelligence Hub team: ESTAT-WIH@ec.europa.eu

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european vocational education and training

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Skills-OVATE offers detailed information on the jobs and skills employers demand based on online job advertisements (OJAs) in 32 European countries. It is powered by Cedefop's and Eurostat's joint work in the context of the Web Intelligence Hub. Please visit the project page to find out the latest news and publications in the OJA work.

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Navigating the Landscape of Green Jobs

Opportunities and challenges across key sectors .

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Probably the most comprehensive classification of green jobs - Bohnenberger Taxonomy of Sustainable Employment.

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A portal that is user-friendly and offers job positions by sector or by country

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Climate and Energy Jobs in Europe | EuroClimateJobs

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Find climate and energy jobs across Europe in renewable energy, climate, environment, policy and regulation, sustainable finance, solar and wind power. Progress your career in climate and energy today with EuroClimateJobs.

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GreenJobs, Environmental Jobs and Renewable Energy Jobs in the UK

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GreenJobs lets you find Environmental Jobs and Renewable Energy Jobs from top employers and recruitment agencies. Search the latest jobs and apply today!

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IEMA (Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment) is a professional organization for anyone involved in the environment and sustainability. It provides resources, training and certifications to help professionals develop in the field of environmental management and offers job opportunities

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ISEP Jobs | Sustainability & Environmental Jobs

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Search for your next Sustainability or Environmental vacancies with ISEP Jobs, the official jobsite for Institute of Sustainability and Environmental Professionals. Start exploring the latest opportunities and find the right career for you today.

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Source: https://www.boell.de/sites/default/files/2020-12/A%20Societal%20Transformation%20Scenario%20for%20Staying%20Below%201.5C.pdf

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Ideas for greening one's job within the company

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Employees are critical catalysts for climate action. As the engines that keep businesses running, you represent a range of skills and knowledge that can scale climate solutions in the workplace and beyond.

The Project Drawdown Job Function Action Guides highlight specific, high-impact climate actions employees in common corporate professions can take at work. Each guide includes why your role and skills are needed in addressing climate change, tangible actions you can take to make your job a climate job, and key considerations and resources to help you get started. Each guide is also accompanied by a simplified Climate Action Checklist-something you can print and keep at your desk to keep you motivated and organized as you implement climate action at work!

While the guides are job function-specific, avoid working in isolation. It's important to not only engage your own job and team, but also coordinate across all company functions and roles-to ensure lasting and effective climate action.
Have you used any of our Job Function Action Guides to make your job a climate job? If so, we want to hear about it! We encourage you to share your story with us by emailing For more information on how businesses should be scaling climate action - and how employees play a crucial role - download our groundbreaking report, the Climate Solutions at Work employee guide. labs@drawdown.org

Corporate finance roles influence how a business manages, spends, and invests its money. Finance professionals can influence how their company approaches financial risk, banking, insurance, cash and investments, retirement plans, planning and budgeting, supply chain finance, philanthropy, and impact investing.

Grantmaking is a major force for accelerating climate solutions. Program officers, grant administrators, and others in the grantmaking field can help scale climate solutions by finding and realizing funding opportunities, ensuring grantees are successful, and connecting various stakeholders within and outside organizations to leverage action.

By rethinking how they run employee benefits, recruitment, and professional development, shaping workplace culture, and making operational changes, human resources and operations professionals can ensure their company's workforce can move climate action forward in the organization.

Members of in-house legal teams can integrate climate action into their work by reassessing how they work with external firms, considering climate in legal agreements, and advocating for and complying with policy and regulation. Those who work as general counsel also have influence over the company's board -from executive compensation decisions to how the board itself is governed.

Marketers understand consumer motivations and can help sway public perception and catalyze action. By engaging customers, rethinking production, creating climate-focused campaigns, and helping support climate policy advocacy, they can help ensure the business is promoting climate solutions.

Procurement professionals can leverage their purchasing power for climate action. They can work with and influence suppliers, help design products differently, and utilize good data to make procurement a force for climate action.

Product designers bring a range of skills and work across departments to make critical decisions about how users will interact with a product or feature. They can incorporate climate solutions into the design process - from sustainable prototyping and low-carbon materials to incorporating actionable climate information for consumers.

Employees who work in a customer or client-facing job can utilize their roles as connectors and propensity to be goal-oriented to take climate action. By reassessing pricing and fees, customer engagement, and sales models, and fostering dialogue within the broader industry, those in sales and client-facing roles can directly integrate climate action into their workflow.

Don't see your role?

Are you interested in taking climate action at work but don't see an action guide for your job function? Let us know so we can get to work creating one to meet your needs! And check out these other great organizations in the meantime:

Do you have an inspiring story of taking climate action at your workplace? Do you have resources (or other recommendations) that we should include in future updates of the action guides? We'd like to hear from you! Reach out to us at labs@drawdown.org or using the contact form below.

Acknowledgments

We want to extend our appreciation to our reviewers who provided much-needed insights and considerations:

Jordana Barrack, Executive Director, Mighty Arrow Family Foundation

Svetlana Beazley, Director, Walgreens Health Procurement, Walgreens Boots Alliance

Charlie Bischoff, Treasury Director, Patagonia

Cameron Bradley, Manager of Special Projects, Climate Lead

Henry Bruce, Director of Product, Expect

François Burra, Sustainable Digital & Low-Carbon Products Consultant, Climate Product Leaders

Julia Comeau, Sustainable Impact Government Affairs Lead, HP Inc.

Kaylyn Fern, Senior Community Impact Manager. Wana Brands & The Wana Brands Foundation

Susan Gladwin, Founder, ClimateOnBoard and Co-Founder and CEO, ReadySetReplace

Kwan-Yin Graw, Investment Analyst, Capricorn Investment Group

Kate Herbert, Senior Manager, Brand Experience, General Mills

Liesje Hodgson, VP Strategy & Innovation, Aruliden, a Material Company

Kevin Houldsworth, Sr Partner Manager, Pinterest

Alexa Hudnut, Engineer, Illumina

Daniel Irivn, Associate, Morrison & Foerster LLP, Social Enterprise and Impact Investing

Ben Lai, Product Manager, LinkedIn

Laura Lara Rodriguez, PhD, R&D Program Manager, 3M

Aileen Lerch, Senior Sustainability Manager, Allbirds

Dario Parziale, Managing Director, Programs and Operations, Toniic

Tim Riedel, Founder & Managing Director, planetgroups, Berlin

Cintia Romero, Senior Product Designer, Pinterest

Steve Saalfeld, Philanthropy Advisor, Greater Tacoma Community Foundation

Mike Sakowski, Director of Product Innovation & Strategy, Climate Practice at IDEO

Michael Santos, Associate, Morrison & Foerster LLP, Social Enterprise and Impact Investing

Cory Sauer, Application Engineering Specialist, 3M

Harry Stanwyck, Associate, Morrison & Foerster LLP, Social Enterprise and Impact Investing

Zach Stein, Cofounder, Carbon Collective

Jacqueline Kozak Thiel, Program Director, Volgenau Climate Initiative

Trent Wolbe, Sustainability Lead, Global Events & Experiences, Google

Colin Young, Software Engineer, Tangible Materials

We'd Like to Hear from you

Are you an employee, corporate decision maker, investor, or philanthropy looking to take climate action or learn more about partnerships? We want to hear from you! Fill out the form below or contact us as labs@drawdown.org.

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The Project Drawdown Job Function Action Guides highlight specific, high-impact climate actions employees in common corporate professions can take at work.

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How you can act as an employee