According to several papers consulted, making economic growth compatible with climate stabilisation and sustainable environment footprint is a dual challenge of green economy. However, policies don’t pay enough attention to social dimension of sustainable development: implications for employment, training and decent work. Mainstreaming greening in employment and skills strategies requires strong partnerships between public, private and not-for-profit organisations to maximise innovation and to manage smoothly labour market transitions from brown to green energy and employment (OCDE, 2015).

 

Many companies already regard the shortage of skilled personnel as an obstacle to economic development: this trend will be reinforced by long term demographic change and for economic reasons alone, there is a need to step up efforts to provide environment-related training and qualification. However, such efforts are also an important precondition for Europe to achieve its environmental and climate objectives. Cedefop (Cedefop and ILO, 2010; Cedefop, 2012)

 

We can define Green Skills as “Skills for sustainability, also known as green skills, are the technical skills, knowledge, values and attitudes needed in the workforce to develop and support sustainable social, economic and environmental outcomes in business, industry and the community." A report ”Green skills and innovation for inclusive growth” (CEDEFOP; LEED and OCDE (2015) insist in the shortage of green competence evidenced in 2012, and proposed a structure of green skills, which revels the need to promote training that cover the following categories of competences:

Technical & subject-specific competences: Vocational and technical skills based on subject-specific emerging and future viability products, technologies, legal guidelines and services, as well as driving forces and trends.

Generic interdisciplinary competences: Transformative key competence: abilities to reflect, engage, change, act and shape the future.

Normative visions open to reflection. Goals and value orientation linked to future Normative aspects of skills: visions, values & preferences development: responsibility, justice, solidarity, distribution, tolerance.

 

Considering that green economy is an area with a high potential for job creation, it’s necessary to develop certain skills, knowledge and competences that ensure the transition of employment and training to this new concept. Thus, labour market actors have to define specific skills and competences that ensure the use of efficient processes and technologies and integrate them into business and community. 

GLOBE aims to develop and boost green skills and competences in apprentice pathways helping them to introduce these skills in the productive processes according to the principle of sustainable environmental management and ensuring successful transition to green economy. 

 

The GLOBE project has a number of specific objectives as follows:

•  Answer to shortage of skills and competences in green economy, especially in the areas that are more evident and have to be addressed in a short period of time (generic interdisciplinary competences);
• Contributing to update the national competence and skills framework, including new competences for green economy and updating traditional professional profiles according to the new requirements;
• Improve the training delivery mechanism, through the development and use of innovative learning and training resources (game based learning);
• Dealing with the dual challenge of green economy, making economic growth compatible with climate stabilisation and sustainable environment footprint through the development of green skills and competences in apprentice; and
• Contributing to develop the social dimension of green economy, promoting training and adapting labour market to new requirements of environmental sustainability.
• GLOBE project target group are apprentices, defined as (European Commission): Those who receive systematic, long-term training by combining practical work-related training at the workplace (either company- or school-based) with theoretical education in an educational institution or training centre.

Benefits for target group:

• Build their capacity on green skills and contribute to green competitive growth of European business, and
• Gain relevant skills and knowledge on green economy.

Besides the main target group, project outcome have other direct and indirect beneficiaries, that is, other collectives that could access and use the developed training resources to acquire and improve their competences for green economy students, trainers and lectures, professionals, etc.).

 

The project should be implemented in a transnational approach, because it will contribute not only to an effective development of European dimension of education, but to the promotion of other relevant European policies as: environment, eco-innovation, competitiveness and growth and sustainable development.

 

 

GLOBE project duration is 24 months, staring in October 2017 and ending in September 2019.