The term “green skills” has garnered significant attention in both European and global policy discussions. In light of the increasingly severe impacts of the climate crisis, there is widespread consensus that a global transition to a low-carbon economy is necessary. However, this transition presents both opportunities and challenges, particularly in the global South. One of the key challenges is the lack of required skills, or even knowledge about which skills will be needed. This calls for a stronger role for Vocational Education and Training (VET).

Despite this need, the term “green skills” remains conceptually unclear. The adjective "green" functions as a "floating signifier," encompassing a wide range of meanings, from radically transformative to minimally reformist (McGrath & Ramsarup, 2024: 248). Similarly, the term "just," as in "skills for green and just transitions," and the concept of the "green economy," which these transitions aim to create, also suffer from ambiguity.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the use of the terms “green skills” and “skills for green and just transitions” in international development policy. The analysis takes place against the backdrop of increasing attention to sustainability issues in VET, while at the same time VET is still expected to act as a major driver of growth and productivity, particularly in the global South. This tension is reflected in a lack of alignment between VET, economic and environmental policies in many countries in the global South.

To explore whether and how the concept of green skills can bridge this tension, this paper will present the results of a literature analysis focusing on the green skills discourses of international organizations. The central research questions are: What are the underlying conceptions of international organizations’ green skills discourses in terms of the ecological, economic, social, and educational dimensions of the envisioned future society? And are there significant differences between the conceptions of different organizations, and if so, what are they?

The conceptual framework of this study is based on Faccer et al’s (2014: 645) classification of three discourses on the green economy - incrementalist, reformist and transformative. These three categories aim to capture the extent to which the examined discourses conceptualise the envisaged green economy as continuing or to the contrary disrupting the current macro-economic paradigm. For the purposes of this paper, we have added the fourth category “radically transformative” to Faccer et al’s classification to better allow for the incorporation of increasing degrowth scholarship. These four categories are deployed to analyse the conceptual understandings underlying green skills discourses in relation to macro-economic structures; ecological and social dimensions, and notions of work, skills, education and VET.

The conceptual framework is informed by academic discussions from various scientific fields. Most notably, research from comparative education (e.g. McGrath, 2022, McGrath & Powell, 2016; McGrath & Ramsarup, 2024; Ramsarup, 2020; Ramsarup et al., 2024) emphasizes the importance of linking the discussion on skills for green and just transitions to broader reflections on the role of VET beyond the productivist orthodoxy. This is connected to political economy of skills approaches (e.g. Allais, 2023; 2020; 2012), which highlight the contextual nature of VET systems and their framing with colonial legacies and post-colonial power asymmetries , especially in the global South. Complementary research on transformative and transgressive learning (e.g., Lotz-Sisitka et al., 2015), degrowth (e.g., Hickel, 2021), and political ecology (e.g., Bringel & Svampa, 2024) further enriches the analysis.

This paper is based on a semi-systematic literature review (Snyder, 2019) of policy documents published by international organisations addressing the topic of “green skills” within a developmental context. The literature review was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, which took place in spring 2024, we selected publications from six international organisations identified as leading actors in the field of green skills in developing countries: the African Union, the Asian Development Bank, the European Training Foundation (ETF), the International Labour Organization (ILO), UNESCO, and UNICEF. This selection followed two criteria. First, we identified the main supra-national organisations active in this field based on publications on their websites (Niemann & Martens, 2021). The selection process was guided by two criteria. First, we identified the main supranational organizations active in this area based on their publications (Niemann & Martens, 2021). Second, to ensure feasibility, we set a time frame for document selection, focusing on publications dated between 2020 and May 2024. Documents were selected based on two main criteria: their publication date within the specified range and their availability on the publicly accessible websites of the respective organizations. To begin the selection process, we searched the websites of each organization for full-text documents in English that contained relevant keywords. We then filtered the results based on title and a preliminary review of the content, ultimately selecting a purposive, non-representative sample of 19 publications for close analysis. For data extraction and analysis, we employed both deductive and inductive approaches. Initially, the selected documents were coded using the software Atlas.ti. Next, data from each organisation was synthesised. Drawing on our conceptual framework, we developed key themes. Finally, the synthesised data from each organization was analysed and compared across the identified themes. Based on the preliminary results from the first stage (discussed below), we decided to expand the scope of the review to include additional international organisations. In the second stage, the time frame was extended to cover publications from 2011 to December 2024, and four additional organizations were included: the African Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the OECD, and the World Bank. The selection process for the second stage is still ongoing, and the expanded body of literature is expected to include approximately 35 documents. Data extraction and analysis for this stage will follow the same procedure as outlined above.

Preliminary findings from the first stage of the literature review indicate significant conceptual variation in how organisations address social justice, the actors involved, and the role of education and skills within green and just transitions. In contrast, none of the organisations critically engage with the growth paradigm. UN organisations, particularly the ILO, incorporate a strong notion of social justice, emphasizing attention to marginalised groups, informal sector workers, and trade unions. In contrast, other organisations devote considerably less focus to these issues. The ILO underscores the concept of decent work, a theme that is otherwise largely overlooked. Most documents do not consider power as a stratifying social category in any meaningful way. A key divide concerns the conceptualisation of (green) skills, VET, and learning. The human capital perspective predominates, with “employability” often used as the central term, occasionally supplemented by a limited notion of “agency.” This typically reflects a utilitarian approach at the systemic level, which fails to recognise the need for comprehensive VET systems that offer holistic educational pathways. An exception to this trend is UNESCO providing a more nuanced approach. In terms of the four discursive categories outlined above, preliminary findings suggest that the ETF and the regional development banks adopt clearly incrementalist discourses. These discourses align with neoliberal economic and labour market approaches, as well as commodified notions of education, skills, and learning. In contrast, the UN organizations exhibit more sophisticated understandings, though these are largely confined to their respective areas of expertise: work for the ILO, education for UNESCO, and youth for UNICEF. The discourses in these areas can be categorised as reformist, with occasional transformative elements. It is anticipated that the second stage of the literature review will provide greater depth and complexity to these preliminary findings and facilitate a comparison of conceptual shifts over time.

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