The increasing frequency of extreme weather events caused by climate change calls for a significant acceleration in the transition towards greener economies and societies. Climate protection efforts and steps to reduce the carbon footprint of the economy have an important impact on labour markets, including on where jobs will be created and lost and the skills that will be in demand. Skills gaps and shortages are already recognised as major bottlenecks in a number of green sectors, which risks constraining innovation and technology adoption. Policy makers can facilitate the shift towards a more sustainable economy through targeted policies on skills, helping workers transition to new industries and fostering investment in skills that are required in sectors with high growth potential. Effective policy action in this area requires better information on the types of skills crucial for the green transition, and the occupations and sectors where these skills are needed.

Extreme weather, global heatwaves, and depletion of natural resources have pushed the need to speed up the transition to a greener economy to the forefront of the policy debate. Ensuring a more sustainable world for current and future generations is now more than ever a priority.

Policy makers can foster a greening of the economy by avoiding bottlenecks in skill supply and by facilitating job transitions. To do so, they require up-to-date and reliable evidence on changing skill demands related to the green transition. These guidelines provide actionable steps for decision makers to set up approaches for assessing and anticipating skills, and then using the insights generated for policy making that promotes the green transition.

The implementation of policies to decarbonise the economy are likely to boost employment in certain low-emission sectors and decrease the number of jobs in resource‑intensive and polluting industries, with implications on skill demand. This chapter traces the beginnings of the research agenda on measuring skill changes related to the green transition, and discusses key concepts such as ‘green industries’, ‘green jobs’, and ‘skills for the green transition’. It provides an in-depth overview of the skills assessment and anticipation exercises from five OECD countries.

Approaches to measure skill changes linked to the greening of the economy differ in scope and the targets they apply. This chapter reviews different targets, for instance, ‘clean economy’, ‘decarbonisation’, or ‘renewable energy’. It distinguishes approaches based on their unit of analysis (industries, occupations, or skills), their focus on current and future skills, and coverage of national or regional labour markets. The chapter also presents different types of governance models of skills assessment and anticipation exercises.

Both qualitative and quantitative methods can be used to estimate current and future skill needs related to the green transition. This chapter discusses the specific advantages and disadvantages of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed method approaches and how they can be applied. The insights are supported by examples of approaches to measuring changing skill needs in the green transition from countries around the world.

Big data can be a valuable source of information for timely and granular labour market analysis. In labour market research on skills, the most commonly used type of big data comes from online job vacancies that are analysed through Natural Language Processing. By means of examples from the public and private sector, this chapter discusses what big data is and how it is currently used in skills analysis linked to the green transition.

Even if there is available evidence on skill shortages linked to the greening of the economy, it is often unclear whether and how this information is used in policy making. This chapter reviews ways in which general insights from skills assessments and anticipation exercises have been applied directly or indirectly to steer policies in a range of areas such as adult training, formal education, career guidance, employment policies, industrial policies, and migration policies.

Some approaches to assessing and anticipating skills related to the greening of the economy are more successful than others in leading to policy action. By means of best practice examples, this chapter identifies common challenges and success factors for evidence‑based policy practices on skills for the green transition. While both skills analyses and policy initiatives in this area are still relatively novel, there are some common characteristics of successful approaches that are illustrated.