Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized 10753 Why Look at Tasks When Designing Skills Policy for the Green Transition? A Methodological Note on How to Identify Green Occupations and the Skills They Require Julia Granata Josefina Posadas Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Policy Research Working Paper Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice April 2024 Policy Research Working Paper 10753 Abstract The coexistence of several definitions of green jobs and measurement instruments gives room for mismatches between those concepts and their application to research questions. This paper first presents an organizing framework for the existing definitions, measurement instruments, and policy frameworks. It then delves into discussing two appropriate approaches for identifying green occupations to guide skills development policy: the task-content and the skills approaches. In the process, it introduces a novel methodology with a dictionary of green terms for identifying green tasks and occupations. This methodology, utilizing text analysis, demonstrates superior performance compared to the well-known O*NET Green Economic Project classification, particularly for developing countries. Lastly, the paper applies this methodology to Indonesia, a middle-income country, and utilizes various data sources to showcase the utility of the dictionary and text analysis exercise. This paper is a product of the Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The authors may be contacted at jposadas@worldbank.org and m.julia.granata@gmail.com. The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. Produced by the Research Support Team Why Look at Tasks When Designing Skills Policy for the Green Transition? A Methodological Note on How to Identify Green Occupations and the Skills They Require Julia Granata1 and Josefina Posadas2, 3 JEL classification: J21, J24, J62, O33, O53, O57, P18, Q58 Keywords: green occupations, green skills, green employment, task-content approach, skills anticipation, O*NET, ISCO-08, text analysis, language Labor Economist and World Bank Consultant (m.julia.granata@gmail.com) Lead Economist (jposadas@worldbank.org) 3 This note was financed with the support of the Jobs After COVID-19 MDTF. We thank Wisnu Harto Adi Wijoyo for his excellent support with part of the data analysis, and peer reviewers Wendy Cunningham, Elizabeth Ruppert Bulmer, Ulrike Lher, and Achim Schmillen for the comments provided. 1 2 1. Motivation The greening of the economy, like other mega-trends, is changing the world of work. Identifying the occupations that will be in demand in the green economy—often simply referred to as green jobs or green occupations—and the skills they require is paramount to supporting and enabling an environmentally sustainable planet while contributing to economic development. New industries that produce environmentally friendly goods and services for intermediate or final consumption are emerging. Moreover, the greening of the economy requires highly polluting industries not necessarily to disappear, but to transform by implementing different technologies to become more sustainable. This economic transformation is impacting occupations to varying degrees, and it becomes critical to identify which ones are changing and what skills they require to make the green transformation possible. Despite the importance of having a common definition of green jobs to be used by researchers and policy makers, there is currently no consensus on a single concept yet, let alone how to identify them in practice. O