ABSTRACT
The concepts of green jobs, green economy and green growth have emerged from different sources, through the work of different organisations and with different target audiences, but they are used almost interchangeably. A main driver behind the development of these concepts has been the move towards a more integrated and holistic approach to incorporating the environment and development in economic decision making, policy and planning. The concept of sustainable development is also holistic and includes economic, social and environmental considerations. Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Green jobs are decent, environmentally friendly and low carbon. Green jobs by definition meet the needs of workers and do not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Thus, green jobs enable sustainable development. However, the share of green jobs in total jobs is small, indicating a limited potential for influencing the economy or society as a whole. The size of the green economy roughly corresponds to the rate of decarbonisation (1.2 per cent, see Chapter 2, Table 2.1), and also to the revenue from environmental taxation. While this correlation does not mean causality, it seems that increasing the share of the green economy could help in decarbonisation. Thus, in order to enable sustainability, the share of green jobs has to increase significantly. The indicators allowing the identification of green jobs are extremely difficult to identify, as concepts of decent, environmentally friendly and low carbon are evolving and are country and sector specific. Technological and economic changes influence the green content: development changes the perception of decent and low carbon jobs. Still, the methodology for defining green jobs should be described in order to provide some definitional consistency. An illustrative set of indicators helps to define green jobs, relating to sector, product or service, production method, position in value chain, etc. (see Box 6.1). The illustrative list of indicators shows that the concept of green jobs includes social, economic and environmental considerations.
