“Pathways to a Circular Economy: Adapting VET training to market needs” - 5 key takeaways
On 12 June 2025, policymakers, VET providers and industry leaders joined the official side event of the 2025 EU Green Week to discuss how Vocational Education and Training (VET) can equip workers with circular economy skills to meet new EU sustainability standards and industry demands.
VET centres and educational institutions are under pressure to update their offerings to meet labour market needs. But this is not a straightforward task, mainly because EU educational pathways remain decentralized, and there’s no EU-wide certification and recognition of green and digital skills. Meanwhile, the job market is changing rapidly. The OECD estimates that over 25% of existing jobs will be strongly affected by net-zero policies. Between 2020-2021, 13% of workers lacked resources to meet job demands, while 70% of companies struggled to find qualified workers for green and digital jobs.
This challenge was at the centre of the webinar organized by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and Cleantech Bulgaria, with partners like the BuildSkills Academy, University College Dublin (UCD), UNITAR, Circular Berlin, and kyklOIKOdromio (KYK), on 12 June 2025 as part of the EU Green Week.
The event focused on exploring how policymakers, educators, and industry leaders can support VET programs and certifications to stay relevant. The built environment, one of the most resource-intensive sectors, served as a key case study.
5 key takeaways from the discussion.
1. Flexible learning pathways need to be widespread and recognized in the EU
The European Commission has a goal of reskilling and upskilling at least 60% of adult workers every year. But this ambitious goal requires more flexible learning pathways.
Enda Murphy (UCD) highlighted the importance of micro credentials in offering a faster and more adaptable alternative to traditional education, which often struggles to quickly adapt its curricula to the green and digital skills needed. Short and targeted programs also allow a holistic approach that aligns with the 17 SDGs. In this regard, Professor Paul Walsh (SDG Academy) emphasized the need for EU-wide certification and recognition of such flexible pathways to not only support reskilling professionals but also greening global supply chains and aligning non-EU companies to the Green Deal directives.
2. Multistakeholder partnerships are essential to create relevant and accessible learning pathways
Creating impactful learning pathways requires a multistakeholder approach, meaning a strong collaboration between public and private sectors. To make education more responsive to real-world needs, multistakeholder partnerships must co-design training that reflects sector-specific challenges and is accessible across contexts.
Elena Proden (UNITAR) highlighted this through the Capabilities 4 the Future Hub, an initiative that seeks to foster dialogue between governments, industry, and education providers to align industrial policy with skills development, promote cross-border coordination and collaboration, and create capacity-building opportunities, especially in lower-income countries and regions where small and medium-sized enterprises typically lack access to tailored learning opportunities.
3. The built environment is key to achieve the green transition
It is no coincidence that the built environment was chosen as a key case study. It is Europe’s most resource-intensive sector, responsible for approximately 50% of the natural resource consumption, 40% of energy consumption, 35% of greenhouse gas emissions, and 30% of waste. Economically, it generates 10% of the EU’s total GDP and over 15 million jobs.
Transforming this sector through targeted professional education is essential for meeting Green Deal targets. Maria Nakova (CTBG) emphasized the role of the BuildSkills Academy (BSA) in supporting VET training in aligning their offerings with the labour market needs. Recently, the BSA launched an online platform where VET centers can use the BuildEnrichedSkills methodology to enrich their own courses with green and digital content. Nakova also highlighted the importance of Centers of Vocational Excellence (COVEs) and the European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs) in aligning training with industry needs, accelerating digital and green skills, and closing gaps between workers, SMEs, and education systems.
BuildSkills Academy_EU Green Week 12 June
4. Adapting VET training to circular economy requires innovation and a shifted mindset
Developing circular economy skills requires a forward-looking and innovative approach to education. It is not just about waste reduction or emissions but also about co-creating new learning experiences that reflect complex, evolving challenges. Dina Padalkina (Circular Berlin) shared how their work in the BuildSkills Academy involved identifying gaps and forecasting future jobs in construction. Padalkina and her team focused on 35 occupations relevant to the construction sector and mapped each one to existing and future skills, which resulted in the clear need for a multidisciplinary approach. For VET providers, this means more than updating content. It also requires adopting new teaching formats and a shifted mindset that reframes the above challenge into an opportunity to develop a strategic advantage and enrich their course’s portfolio.
20250612_BuildSkills_EU Green Week
5. VET providers must overcome systemic and practical barriers to integrate circular skills effectively
Integrating circular economy skills into VET requires addressing major barriers. Anthi Charalambous (KYK) identified four main challenges: outdated and fragmented curricula, underqualified trainers lacking practical experience, limited industry integration, and insufficient policy support and training.
To overcome these, Charalambous emphasized the need for multidisciplinary curricula that embed sustainability, systems thinking, and life-cycle analysis. Courses should be tailored to sector-specific needs, and trainers must be carefully selected and upskilled to meet industry demands. Finally, collaboration with innovation centres, businesses, and circular economy actors is essential to co-develop relevant, hands-on training that reflects real-world practices and challenges.
ACharalambous EU Green Week 12 June event
What’s next?
The path to a circular economy is clear: VET training needs to adapt quickly, which requires a coordinated and forward-looking strategy from a multitude of stakeholders.
It is essential to invest in micro credentials and support the creation of an EU-wide certification framework that is internationally recognized. The BuildSkills Academy is a key initiative to follow, as one of its objectives is to become a fully integrated academy that will certify professionals on transitional skills.
It is also equally important to strengthen multilateral industrial cooperation and ensure global supply chains become greener and more sustainable. Initiatives like the Capabilities 4 the Future Hub can support sectors and promote cross-border collaboration to anticipate future skills and not just respond to the current ones.
Finally, innovation in education must be matched with policy support, funding, and infrastructure. VET providers, policymakers, and industry leaders, especially from the built environment, must embrace circular economy practices and skills, and turn this into an opportunity and competitive advantage.
The full webinar is available here: Webinar EU Green Week 2025: Pathways to a Circular Economy
