Green jobs, definitional issues, and the employment of young people: An analysis of three European Union countries

Shock or opportunity? Unveiling the effect of low-carbon transition on employment

The stabilization of growth and preservation of employment are the primary objectives of the current new economic normal. Investigating whether the low-carbon transition can be an opportunity or a shock for employment expansion in green development requires thorough examination. This study utilizes multi-temporal difference-in-difference (DID) models, analyzing comprehensive panel data from China (2007-2019) to assess the impact of the Low-carbon City Pilot (LCCP) policy on employment at meso-regional and micro-firm levels. Empirical findings robustly reveal that LCCP significantly boosts employment, with average treatment effects of approximately 0.548% and 5.892% at regional and firm scales, respectively. Positive impacts vary based on ownership, location, industry type, and energy consumption within enterprises. Notably, state-owned enterprises, those in the eastern region, engaged in secondary industries, and with high energy consumption experience pronounced positive effects. Mechanism analysis further reveals that LCCP boosts employment via promoting government environmental subsidies and expanding enterprise investment scale to create more jobs. These findings provide policy recommendations for further promoting low-carbon transition and expanding employment to achieve the win-win goal of sustainable development.

Evaluating the employment effects of environmental regulation without abatement cost data: A nonparametric cost function approach

Environmental policymakers are concerned that environmental regulations reduce employment. A microeconomic analysis illustrates that environmental regulations have an uncertain effect on employment, making this an empirical question. A standard cost function model, used in the literature, requires a lot of data such as pollution abatement cost data to examine effects of environmental regulations on employment, but such survey data is not always available. In this paper, we develop a nonparametric cost function which alleviates the need for pollution abatement cost data. Our cost function, therefore, allows researchers and policy analysts to estimate employment changes associated with pollution abatement as well as measure the relative importance of other factors related to changes in employment with no pollution abatement cost data. Moreover, this is the first model using a cost function that incorporates the effect of structural change among industries within the economy on employment, which allows researchers to the examine how environmental regulations change the structure of the economy via a structural decomposition component. We illustrate how to operationalize our model using a balanced panel of industry-level data for 26 industries from 17 OECD countries (1995-2006). Our findings suggest that the change in employment due to regulatory induced increases in input costs exhibits both substantial variation among countries and substantial intra-country heterogeneity among industries.

Green Jobs: Bibliometric Review

Among the visible effects as Sustainable Development (SD) transitions from theory into practice, there are Green Jobs (GJs). There are multiple variants in naming this phenomenon in the labor market. Among them are green collars, green employment, and sustainable employment, all indicating a profound inconsistency in the GJ definition. This article aims to identify keyword-specified areas around which the topic of GJs revolves in the scientific literature indexed in the Scopus database. The usage of two methods has achieved this goal. First is the Structured Literature Review (SLR) variation with queries, and it is used to explore the scientific database to determine GJ's definition consistency by the queries syntax. The second method is the search results analysis performed in the Scopus database online to identify the most cited publications and most contributing authors. Then the bibliometric analysis was performed to create bibliometric maps of the most critical keywords in VOSviewer software. The combination of those two approaches allowed this research to indicate the most influential research directions on GJs. The results are presented in graphical forms, and tables with main co-occurring keyword clusters were identified. GJs are a key part of green economy development, where green self-employment and green entrepreneurship play a pivotal role. The presented results can inspire other researchers who are looking for a research gap or describing the state of the art. Politicians and decision-makers can be influenced by the presented contextualization of green job's meaning in the labor market.

Commitment of European SMEs to resource efficiency actions to achieve sustainability transition. A feasible reality or an elusive goal?

The European Union has built an interdependent framework to promote sustainability transition through commitment in resource efficiency (RE) actions as echoed in the European Green Deal. Although the factors affecting firms' decision to adopt a green strategy have been extensively explored, those affecting commitment remain unexplored. Thus, we study whether commitment of European SMEs to RE actions fosters sustainability transition and, what drives such commitment. Data includes more than 37,000 European SMEs from 2013 through 2017, combined with country-specific characteristics explored via a probit model with sample selection. Findings indicate that during the study period there has been a change in the structure of incentives of the firms, as in the beginning of the period, adoption of RE actions and future engagement were considered as independent decisions. We document that commitment is driven RE enhancers such as the implementation of new technological paradigms, cooperation, and specialized business advice while resource productivity, green energy, and competitiveness further foster commitment. Findings advocate that commitment in RE actions to achieve sustainability transition is a feasible reality. Efforts of policymakers should focus on further enabling RE committed firms by reducing policy red tape.

Green Jobs—A Literature Review

In the past two decades the topic of “green jobs” has drawn particular attention, resulting in a widely diverse and relatively large number of published papers. Although a determinant for the increase of knowledge, the heterogeneity of these studies may raise the issue of a systematic documentation of the key contributions in this field. In this context, the present research focuses on analyzing the scientific literature published in the last five years on the topic of “green jobs” with the aim to identify definitions and meanings associated with the concept of “green jobs”, the connected terms, areas of research interest and the main theoretical and practical results. The results reveal that although there is no uniformity in the definition of the concept, there is still a convergence towards the initial meaning offered by the UNEP/ILO/IOE/ITUC Report of 2008. Moreover, using scientific software VOSViewer our research shows that the concept of “green jobs” is most linked with the following terms: sustainable development, the green economy, the circular economy, the welfare economy, the European Green Pact, energy, renewable energy, economic development, and employment. Furthermore, our analysis reveals that the studies focused on “green jobs” are mainly concerned with the following issues: green jobs creation, work-life balance, correlations between green business and green jobs and the role of local government in supporting green jobs.

Green Economy Development Progress in the Republic of Buryatia (Russia)

Under current conditions, the green economy concept has received a comprehensive response in achieving the sustainable development of regions. However, measuring green economic development progress is dynamic, quantitatively characterized by indicators reflecting various aspects. The difficulty lies in a comprehensive environmental sustainability assessment in a context that includes the territory’s environmental, social, and economic factors. The study aimed to assess the progress of the Republic of Buryatia’s (Russia) “green” economic development. The proposed methodology for constructing a composite index is based on five dimensions’ aggregation—resource efficiency, environmental efficiency, environmental quality of life, natural assets, and institutional factors. The composite index helped generalize the complex processes of the region’s environmental–socio–economic development. Its main feature is the reflection of the environmental specificity of the territory. We built a mid-term forecast of the composite and sub-indices, determined their future trend, and assessed the opportunities and conditions for the fastest transition of the Republic of Buryatia to a green economy. The developed composite index is a key tool for regulating green economic development progress, determining prospects, and region management. This paper attempts to fill the gap in a comprehensive assessment of the Republic of Buryatia’s current situation using a composite index.

Green growth & sustainability transition through information. Are the greener better informed? Evidence from European SMEs

The European Green Deal along with directives promoting Circular Economy support sustainability transition and foster green growth through developing appropriate funding. However, information on how to access such funding affects firms' decision to expand their business strategy. This paper investigates the effect of information about financing tools on the adoption of Circular Economy business activities by exploring whether the better-informed firms are 'greener' and what influences such decision through a switching endogenous regressor model to account for endogeneity and selectivity bias. Data on European SMEs is combined with country-specific characteristics and econometric results indicate that better informed firms are by 65 percentage points more likely to adopt an activity promoting Circular Economy, highlighting that awareness about funding tools is crucial for sustainability transition. Evidence advocates for mainstreaming information regarding funding sources to pave the way towards green growth. A rebound effect regarding the use of renewables is observed whilst evidence points towards the rejection of Porter Hypothesis. Policy makers should target in fostering a greener business environment for the firms that engage in Circular Economy practices through increased information on funding options. Findings are also pertinent to the ongoing discussion and policy agenda around acceleration of the transition to a greener European Economy.

The circular economy and the Green Jobs creation

The circular economy (CE) is a proposal for a new, more sustainable, and durable economy model. As a consequence, this pro-environmental economic model induces visible changes in the labor market which are Green Jobs (GJs). This paper is focused on the creation of Green Jobs in the CE. The GJs are most visible in the environmental goods and services sector (EGSS). This study aims to investigate EGSS among 28 European Union countries in the years 2009-2019. The adopted method was literature research complemented by the statistical analysis of secondary data from Eurostat in the linear regression method. Then, some Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their measure were used as main indicators reflecting changes in the labor market. Results are presented as a model indicating which of the SDGs can support CE and enhance a number of the Green Jobs. Presented results contribute to the science because combine factors influencing GJs creation in EGSS, in a CE perspective. This study underlines a lack of uniform methods for measuring and forecasting the effects of Green Jobs creation and indicates future research directions.

Assessing regional performance for the Sustainable Development Goals in Italy

The monitoring report on progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a global context involves a large number of actors as it represents probably the biggest change that our society is implementing. Actions at all levels, from local, regional and national to the aggregation of multiple countries (e.g. EU 27) are needed to achieve a sustainable future. This work focuses on a national perspective (Italy) where multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is used to measure current performance. A sustainability score for each region is calculated from a set of 175 indicators contained in all 17 SDGs. Additionally, sustainability scores are disaggregated along the three pillars – social (1–5, 10, 16, and 17), environmental (6, 13–15) and economic (7–9, 11, and 12). The results highlight the positive performance of northern regions and, in particular, of Trentino Alto Adige, which ranks first in the two considered scenarios. In addition, the relevance of territorial specificities emerges for which the analysis of individual SDGs shows different leading regions. It is noteworthy to highlight the performance of the environmental sub-group of SDGs in southern regions, in contrast to the social and economic sub-groups. Evidently, policy actions are needed to reduce the long-lasting North/South divide—yet the highlighted heterogeneous sustainability performance along the three dimensions calls for well targeted policy measures necessary to regain competitiveness at a European and global level, without compromising with environmental sustainability.

Spanish Tourist Sector Sustainability: Recovery Plan, Green Jobs and Wellbeing Opportunity

This paper presents an overview on political economy and economic policies into the European Green Deal framework and the Spanish recovery plan, with special attention to the tourism sector and actual opportunities for green jobs in the Spanish tourism market. Firstly, there is a literature review, combining the scientific production with professional and institutional literature, to understand the topic development, from the former restrictive point to the wider current view. Secondly, a case study about the green jobs opportunity in the Spanish hotel industry is presented, taking into account wellbeing economics, for the renewal of the Spanish tourism industry. Methodology combines the qualitative analysis of literature and the qualitative review of the CSR reports from top Spanish hotel chains as well as the feedback of sustainability experts at the hotel industry. This paper provides valuable information to improve the sectorial recovery plan and coordinate the policymakers and the business managers and entrepreneurs.

European Green Deal and Recovery Plan: Green Jobs, Skills and Wellbeing Economics in Spain

This paper on Political Economic and Labour Economic Policies in the European Green Deal framework analyses the Recovery Plan and Resilience Facility. It pays attention to the effects on the design of new green jobs and the necessary skills to develop this type of new positions generated, with higher labour wellbeing. The paper is focused on the analysis of the green jobs’ opportunity for Europe, at a country level, with a specific analysis made for the Spanish case. A systematisation of the concepts and calculations on the issue is made and analysed (attending the international institutions and forums proposals) to harmonise the recovery plans, apply them beyond the energy sector to other related green activities and align the public and private sector, and other critical stakeholders, in achieving this goal. The following research questions were formulated: (1) what is the estimated number of new green jobs that would be created as a consequence of the implementation of the Recovery Plan in Spain; (2) which new soft skills or re-skilling would be necessary to develop such new green jobs; (3) how much are the new jobs aligned with Wellbeing Economics? The research was conducted by applying a few research methods, i.e., secondary sources, the desk research method and the exploration method, critical and comparative analysis, inductive and deductive reasoning and some mathematical calculations. The research contribution can provide a valuable source of information to coordinate sectoral plans by the policymakers, particularly those responsible for the economy, business, green activities and education.

The assessment of buildings and constructions sector of economy proposal: an environmental perspective

Environmental impact assessment methods suffer from an applicability issue which could impede their use and development. The main subject of this article is to present a method to evaluate the applicability of building environmental assessment method in a given country. Here, when we say that a method is applicable in a given country, it means that it could be widely used and that it could produce the expected effects in terms of energy savings, environmental impact minimization, economic gain, etc. So, for this applicability evaluation purpose, the main criteria that affect the building environmental assessment method applicability were identified and were weighted by studying different scenarios. Then, the evaluation method was applied to the Tunisian case. Moreover, in order to contribute to a better understanding of the importance of building environmental assessment method implementation, stakes related thereto are reviewed. It was reported that building environmental assessment method would concur to improve building energy efficiency, enhance social capital, and contribute to environmental, social, and economic stability. In addition, it could be one of the major solutions for the collection of statistical data, which in turn would contribute to the success of projects undertaken as part of the green economy. Eventually, the building environmental assessment could be one of the major green marketing tools and should be taken into account by a company to improve profitability. The developed method and the presented stakes could be a good management and decision making tools and could help legislators and policy-makers for the best implementation of building environmental assessment method.