The role of skills in the green transition and the implications on labour markets

Contemporary labour markets are deeply affected by environmental changes, whether they are impacted by climate change natural phenomena, climate migration or by effects generated by policies interventions aimed at mitigating environmental threats. To tackle the potential negative consequences on employment rates and on natural and built environment, in the last few decades world economies have started to develop decarbonization strategies on several levels of implementation. The shared objective would be to reach a so-called Green Economy, a sustainable economic model that does not harm the environment while maintaining or fostering growth and employment, through a change process called "green transition". The first goal of this thesis is to provide a review of the major causes of impacts (and their magnitude) on employment levels associated with climate change and mitigation policies, namely: climate change natural phenomena; climate migrations; policies and regulations targeting businesses and labour; carbon pricing measures. A similar analysis is then conducted over the concept of Circular Economy: this concept expands and evolves the one of Green Economy by promoting growth within, achieved through the extraction of more value and consumer utility from existing stocks of products and materials while addressing social aspects as well. Green growth models are more focused on achieving economic growth in an environmentally, but not necessarily socially fair, sustainable way. The second goal of this thesis is to provide an overview of the main pillars of circularity, the business and employment opportunities that it creates and the enabling aspects, policies and actions that could facilitate the transition to a circular economy. The pursuit of an effective and successful green transition, however, is highly dependent on the availability of the right sets of skills to allow for the transition to happen in the first place, and to fill the new jobs and tasks that will be created in the future (the so-called green jobs). Moreover, jobs displacement in phasing-out brown sectors may create significant job losses that might be worsened by the changes in skill demand from the labour market. Misalignment between skills requirements and supply are called "skill mismatches" and can have many forms. The third goal of this thesis is to provide an overview of the major skill mismatch types and their magnitude, along with the analysis of the possible future skill needs of a Green Economy and the public and private interventions/policies that could mitigate skill mismatches and therefore job displacement, while facilitating shifts toward emerging green sectors and the provision of skills for the future green jobs. All the points will be addressed through the review of the prominent literature and the analysis of real cases of application of policies and interventions in different countries. Finally, an in-depth review of the project "Circular Re-Thinking" will be proposed, as a representation of an Italian initiative launched by Trentino Sviluppo, Terra Institute and Renewable Matter, aimed at developing skills and knowledge through an academic course related to the Circular Economy and open to the participation of freelancers and employees of Progetto Manifattura (based in Rovereto, Italy).