Following the publication of the OECD’s paper Enhancing green career guidance systems for sustainable futures, Peter Plant, the originator of the concept of green guidance, reflects on its movement into the mainstream and what this new paper adds to the debate.
And it was busy in the beech forest, and there was life on the move
And when the children came out, everything was as it should be
For then the forest was green, green
For then the forest was green, green
When the OECD takes up a theme, you know that it has become mainstream and generally and politically accepted. The four letters, OECD, stand for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and for many years, the organisation worked with its 38 country members with a singular focus on economic growth – regardless of the implications of this in terms of sustainability, biodiversity, climate crises, etc.
But in recent years, the OECD has begun to focus on quality of life, i.e. the Good Life. This has included the environment, civil society, education and so on and has been monitored through the OECD Better Life Index, which has 11 indicators which proclaim that ‘there is more to life than the cold numbers of GDP and economic statistics’. It is here that Denmark and other Nordic countries appear as the best countries to live in.
In continuation of this shift in focus, the OECD has renewed its interest in career guidance and has even begun to examine ‘green guidance’. By green guidance the organisation means guidance which addresses sustainability in a broad sense. This took the form of a Working Paper entitled ‘Enhancing green career guidance systems for sustainable futures‘ (2024).
This is not the first time that the OECD has taken an interest in (career) guidance. I was part of the team of experts that in the early 2000s prepared the OECD’s Career guidance policy review. At that time, the OECD’s focus was on international competition, the knowledge society and economic growth. We sometimes managed to sneak some green and sustainability angles into these reports, but they were few and far between. In this period, green guidance stood as a utopia, something exotic, even though the concept had been introduced a dozen years earlier and over the years continued to be the subject of (some) attention in guidance circles.
Light green/dark green?
In 2024, this picture has fundamentally changed. Politicians and organisations are queuing up to be green, or at least light green (see my article Paradigms under pressure). This has seen the risk of greenwashing also hit the guidance field. But in the meantime, lots of both local and national green guidance initiatives are sprouting up. All the way from Ireland and Flanders and Australia and New Zealand’s (several countries other could also be mentioned) we have seen a national focus on the theme of green guidance across the entire education system…. to the EU’s current engagement with the theme through the Exploring green guidance project. From this project comes this list of idea about what green guidance can be.
- Green guidance is broader than just ‘sustainability’ in the narrow sense: social justice is an important dimension
- Green guidance must be based on green labour market information
- Green guidance is not a one-way street, but is based on several approaches
- Green contains ethical dilemmas for guidance, including ‘neutrality’
The OECD’s Working Paper provides a 2024 snapshot from 20 selected countries; A total of 87 programmes or initiatives in primary and secondary schools were examined, although Denmark and the other Nordic countries were missed out. The Education Guide’s information about green jobs and education (ug.dk), or the Green Jobber Series on Norway’s State TV, NRK, would also deserve international attention. But in the OECD’s Working Paper we find Centres of Excellence in New Brunswick, Canada; the See It, Be It Green Jobs Intervention Series in the UK; Circonopoly, a game from Flanders; Youth Engaged in Sustainable Systems (YESS) programme in the United States; Canopy: Green Careers Series also in the United States; NatureScot from Scotland’s Nature Agency; JobDD: Métiers Engagé from France – and many other concrete examples of career learning courses, information materials, videos, identification persons, games, summer camps, internships which address sustainability. The OECD relates Green Guidance to labour market forecasts in relation to green jobs and ‘green transition’. Most of these examples of initiatives fall within UNESCO’s understanding of ESC, (Education for sustainable development), but this important framework and inspiration is not mentioned in the OECD’s Working Paper, strangely enough.
In short, there are a lot of green forces at work. The UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals point in the same direction: the institutions and policies are greened – but how far and how fast? Few go as far as Stefania Maggi from Canada, who links career guidance with human rights and climate activism, see Guidance for kids is our best hope for spurring climate change careers, but with the OECD’s new Working Paper the close link between sustainability and guidance has been seriously established. I would also direct you to our book on Career guidance and sustainability which digs further into these issues.
Now the guidance will be Green, Green. Soon. Right?
