ABSTRACT
It is difficult to plan supply of green skills if one is unclear about what skills one is provisioning for; hence it is important to clarify notions of green jobs and greening occupations and their representation within the South African post-school system. The chapter explores some of the central ideas to clarify the contested nature of green economy and green jobs and how this underpins framing an appropriate green skills response. Through our work we have surfaced that central to working with understandings of green jobs are systems of occupational classification as they often govern occupational and skills provisioning. This chapter shows how central to the challenges experienced with green skills research in South Africa is the meagre representation of environmental occupations at intermediate and elementary skill levels in occupational systems. Furthermore environmental occupations appear scattered and are not visible across levels of skill. Moreover, green skills are a socially constructed concept, intangible and often unobservable. A demand-led approach to green skills has not worked because employers are unable to effectively articulate their skill needs to skills delivery bodies. This has methodological implications for how green skills research is designed and structured and who the central actors are.
