Decent Work, Green Jobs and the Sustainable Economy demonstrates that green jobs can be a key economic driver, as the world steps into the largely uncharted territory of building a sustainable and low-carbon global economy. Poschen shows that positive outcomes are possible, but require a clear understanding of the opportunities and challenges.
Enterprises, workers and governments are not passive bystanders in the great transformation that is urgently needed in our economies. They are essential agents of change, able to develop new ways of working in sustainable enterprises that safeguard the environment, create decent jobs and foster social inclusion.
This book highlights the solutions that the world of work offers for policy and practice to tackle climate change, achieve environmental sustainability and to build prosperous and cohesive societies. It is essential reading for those in business, academia and government.
This report presents the status of renewable energy employment, both by technology and in selected countries, over the past year. In this second edition, IRENA estimates that renewable energy employed 7.7 million people, directly or indirectly, around the world in 2014 (excluding large hydropower). This is an 18% increase from the number reported the previous year. In addition, IRENA conducted the first-ever global estimate of large hydropower employment, showing approximately 1.5 million direct jobs in the sector.
The 10 countries with the largest renewable energy employment were China, Brazil, the United States, India, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, France, Bangladesh and Colombia. The solar PV industry is the largest renewable energy employer worldwide with 2.5 million jobs, followed by liquid biofuels with 1.8 million jobs, and wind power, which surpassed 1 million jobs for the first time. The employment increase extends across the renewable energy spectrum with solar, wind, biofuels, biomass, biogas and small hydropower all seeing increases in employment.
This study provides an overview of development trends and environmental performance as well as policy strategies to promote green growth in seven Asian countries - China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam. Despite emerging green growth strategies and green industries in the region, Asian economies are far from becoming green, resource-efficient and sustainable. The emerging discourse on green growth and climate change offers both opportunities as well as new challenges for promoting a broader greening of Asian economies. There are various entry-points and recommendations for policy action, including an appropriate institutional framework and fiscal incentives as well as the support to environmental innovations and decent green job creation.
The study gives an overview of the international debate on issues related to green jobs and the green economy and the associated definitions, concepts and measurement approaches. The study provides an overview of the central instruments for promoting a green economy and employment in it and integrates them in an overall taxanomy. The authors discuss the role of the accompanying employment and labour market policy instruments and present the most important methods for identifying and assessing the employment impacts of a greening of the economy. On that basis, a series of recommendations for action are formulated to promote employment within the framework of green economy strategies for the context of development cooperation.
The World Survey on the Role of Women in Development is a UN Secretary-General report mandated by the Second Committee of the General Assembly and comes out every five years. The 2014 report focuses on gender equality and sustainable development, with chapters on the green economy and care work, food security, population dynamics, and investments for gender-responsive sustainable development. The report comes at a crucial moment, as the global community grapples with the definition of the Sustainable Development Goals and the emergence of the post-2015 framework. This report also offers a comprehensive set of recommendations for gender-responsive policy actions and investments towards sustainable development overall, as well as for the selected areas which the World Survey emphasizes.