The skill-content of green technologies

Abstract

In the wide spectrum of expected impacts of the transition towards environmentally sustainable economies, those that affect employment are among the most relevant due to their societal importance. We believe that the persistent lack of detailed analyses on the skill content of the jobs created, modified (or destructed) by ‘green technological change’ is a significant shortcoming of the literature that, ultimately, limits the capacity to define problems and identify possible solutions for the educational and training system. The present paper seeks to fill this gap by proposing a framework that analyses in detail the task- and skill-content of green occupations. The case of green technologies represents an interesting application for this approach. Not only green technologies are the most direct way to address climate change problems and resource scarcity, but they also involve fundamental changes in the way products are designed, processed and disposed off. Given the scant of literature on green skills, the main goal of our empirical analysis is to identify the skill profile of green occupation and, as a second step, to explain differences in the skill content using our measure of technology exposure. More in detail, our empirical strategy is designed to compare green and non-green occupations along the four skill dimensions defined above.