During the post-war recovery in Ukraine, at least 1.2 million “green” jobs could be created.
This forecast was announced by Svitlana Berzina, head of the All-Ukrainian public organization “Living Planet,” during a roundtable discussion entitled “Green Jobs for Ukraine's Recovery and European Integration.” She presented the results of a large-scale study conducted jointly with ministries, government agencies, and business representatives, with the involvement of active military personnel and veterans.
What are “green” jobs?
The expert said that currently, neither European nor Ukrainian legislation has an official definition of the term “green jobs.” However, experts tend to believe that these are jobs that contribute to the transition to sustainable enterprises and economies. They can be found in traditional sectors (water supply and sanitation, industry, construction, etc.) as well as in sectors aimed at protecting the environment (production of purification equipment, wastewater treatment, renewable energy, etc.).
According to Berzina, “green” sectors offer one of the highest potentials for job creation worldwide.
What is Ukraine's potential for creating such jobs?
The minimum number of “green” jobs that can be created in Ukraine during the green recovery is 1.2 million. In total, more than 715,000 enterprises, institutions, and organizations, as well as individual entrepreneurs, have the potential to create “green” jobs for veterans according to their KVED codes.
Source: NGO “Living Planet.”
The top three industries that will be able to create the most such jobs are:
- construction, management, restoration, and maintenance of real estate and infrastructure;
- agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and logging;
- trade.
Source: NGO “Living Planet.”
What is needed to move forward
Both Svitlana Berzina and other participants in the round table emphasized the following mandatory conditions for creating “green” jobs:
- Defining “green” jobs as a separate political and legal category.
- These jobs must be of high quality.
- Making changes to the education system with an emphasis on “green” skills.
- The availability of state support for the creation of new “green” jobs.
- Implementation of Regulation 2015/2174 to begin calculating employment in the field of environmental goods and services.
It should be noted that Ukraine recently became the first country in Europe to adopt the national standard DSTU 9328:2025 on eco-industrial parks.
EcoPolitic also reported that in 2022, employment in the green economy in EU countries grew by an average of 9.5% compared to 2021.
