Overview
The green and digital transitions are reshaping how work is organised and coordinated across Europe. They are often described as a “twin” transition, implying a closely intertwined and synergetic nature. Yet how they interact — and what this means for workers and workplaces — remains under-researched and difficult to measure with existing tools.
To fill this gap, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) develops concepts, measures and primary evidence needed to understand these two transformations and the way they interact at the workplace.
What is the JRC doing: scientific actions and support
The JRC investigates the twin transition from two complementary angles: how the green and digital transitions meet at the workplace, and how to define and measure the jobs affected by the green transition.
Work in the twin transition
Case studies the twin transition at the workplace
The JRC conducted twelve in-depth case studies across the energy, transport and finance sectors in Spain and Sweden.
On one hand, the case studies confirm genuine synergies: digitalisation supports greening through better coordination and dematerialisation of processes, while green objectives can in turn drive digital adoption. On the other hand, less favourable outcomes in some workplaces emerged, including additional administrative burdens and work intensification.
Designing a new survey on work in the twin transition
Building on the JRC's earlier survey work on the digitalisation and platformisation of work, the JRC developed the concepts, questionnaire and measurement strategy for a new statistically representative survey on work in the twin transition.
The methodological foundations — moving from concepts to measures — are documented in Surveying the Twin Transition at the workplace: From concepts to measures (Martínez-Sánchez et al. 2025), which provides the basis for future data collection on how the twinning of the transitions affects task content, skill requirements, work organisation and job quality.
The employment implications of the green transition
Shifting economic patterns towards climate neutrality will reshape European labour markets. The most widely used method for identifying “green jobs” is the occupational approach, which assigns a degree of greenness to occupations based on their task content.
JRC analysis shows that this approach poorly captures the labour-market footprint of the green transition. Therefore, the JRC is mapping and testing alternative methods — including output- and process-based approaches — to identify the technologies, sectors and economic activities relevant to the green transition and to construct more reliable measures of green employment.
Impact and results
The JRC’s twelve workplace case studies in Spain and Sweden provided the first qualitative evidence on how the green and digital transitions interact at company level.
The findings directly informed conceptual and survey development work, producing a new measurement framework for statistically representative research on the twin transition.
The JRC’s critical review of the occupational approach to measuring green jobs identified key conceptual gaps and proposed alternative frameworks focused on green economic outputs and processes, laying the groundwork for more robust and comparable EU-level data on green employment.
Policy background
This work supports the European Green Deal and the EU’s ambition to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, as well as the broader agenda for fair digital and green transitions outlined in the European Pillar of Social Rights. The JRC research informs policy debates on the future of work, job quality and skills in a transforming economy.
- European Green Deal
- European Pillar of Social Rights
- EU digital decade policy programme 2030
- Just Transition mechanism
Key stakeholders
This work is carried out in close collaboration with the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, and connects to the JRC’s wider research on the changing nature of work.
Related publications
Aloisi, A., Integrating the EU Twin (Green and Digital) Transition? Synergies, Tensions and Pathways for the Future of Work, JRC Working Papers Series on Labour, Education and Technology 2025/01, European Commission, Seville, 2025, JRC140964.
Fana, M. and Landini, F., Beyond the occupational approach: A Review of alternative approaches to measure green employment, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2025, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2760/6704279, JRC144307.
González-Vázquez, I., Mariscal de Gante Martín, Á., Håkansta, C., Strauss-Raats, P., Ståhl, C. et al., Work in the green and digital transition: insights from case studies in Spain and Sweden, JRC Working Papers Series on Labour, Education and Technology 2025/08, European Commission, Seville, 2025, JRC143934.
Martínez-Sánchez, W., Mariscal de Gante Martín, Á., Fernández-Macías, E., González-Vázquez, I. and Moilanen, F., Surveying the Twin Transition at the workplace: From concepts to measures, JRC Working Papers Series on Labour, Education and Technology 2025/07, European Commission, Seville, 2025.
Muñoz de Bustillo, R., A Critical Review of the Digital and Green Twin Transitions. Implications, synergies and trade-offs, JRC Working Papers Series on Labour, Education and Technology 2024/07, European Commission, Seville, 2024, JRC140036.
Villani, D., González-Vázquez, I. and Fernández-Macías, E., Green Jobs. A critique of the occupational approach to measure the employment implications of the green transition, JRC Working Papers Series on Labour, Education and Technology 2025/02, European Commission, Seville, 2025, JRC140967.
Villani, D., Fernández-Macías, E., González-Vázquez, I. and Oshafi, V., The grey shades of green jobs: Unpacking the occupational approach to green employment, Ecological Economics, vol. 240, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2025.108833.