What drives the creation of green jobs, products and technologies in cities and regions? Insights from recent research on green industrial transitions

Abstract

Given the global imperative to meet ‘net zero’, and growing interest in the potential for green jobs growth, there is an urgent need to better understand the drivers and processes underlying green structural economic transitions. How should we in fact define ‘green’ products, jobs and technologies? How do local economies transition into greener jobs – is this generally an incremental process or does it require more radical innovation? Building on nascent green definitions, recent work emerging from the literature in Evolutionary Economic Geography suggests that there is a degree of path dependency to green transitions, with regions benefiting from existing capabilities which are somehow related to newer green tasks and technologies. On the other hand, having diverse, frequently unrelated, skills and competencies also helps local economies to make the recombinations necessary for the emergence of new green activities. These drivers are moderated by factors such as the local institutional environment, IT skills and the degree of maturity of the local industrial base. This article summarises the recent literature in order to provide an overview of emerging findings of relevance to local policy delivery, while also highlighting future research directions.