Green Jobs
Green Jobs is a program started in 2015 as part of Fondazione Cariplo’s commitment to promoting the realization of the youth’s full potential culturally, socially and professionally. In particular, promoting green jobs for the youth has been identified by our Environment program area staff as a response that can potentially yield significant benefits in terms of both employability of the younger generations and environmental sustainability impact on the production fabric.
To pinpoint appropriate ways to intervene, in 2015 Fondazione Cariplo held consultations and discussions with local players, business representatives as well as experts in the field including, among others, representatives from Lombardy’s Board of Education, the association of Lombard businesses, and the Milan branch of the Confederation of Italian Industry.
The goals of the program promoting green jobs in Fondazione Cariplo’s constituency, especially among youngsters have been: raising awareness of employment opportunities in the green economy as well as of the skills and profiles that are in demand; improving secondary and tertiary education curricula and better align them with green economy skills demand; facilitating matching of skills and green job opportunities and development of entrepreneurial skills in the environmental area.
Over the years the Green Jobs program has entailed various lines of action. Among these, the 150 six-month paid green job traineeships offered to university graduates aged under 30 at 85 businesses. The value of this initiative is reflected in the results of its quality assessment showing that those who had participated in a green job traineeship have been more likely to find a green job and get a permanent employment contract.
In school year 2020-’21 the Green Jobs program entered its sixth year in operation and is now focused on fourth-year high school kids in Fondazione Cariplo’s constituency with an action that is two-pronged and features:
- guidance for students to raise their awareness and deepen their knowledge of opportunities of training and careers in the green economy. Guidance is provided through the collaboration with Green Jobs Hub via meetings introducing green jobs, presentations given by professionals working in the green economy and individual interviews with career coaches and counselors.
- a green entrepreneurship program that helps students gain the cross-disciplinary entrepreneurial and sustainability skills that are increasingly in demand in the green economy. Held in collaboration with Junior Achievement Italia and InVento Innovation Lab, the program teaches subjects in an integrated, cross-disciplinary way, guiding students to create a green mini-enterprise, step by step, from the identification of the environmental issue and the solution idea though the preparation of the business plan, all the way through the development of a green product or service. Italy’s Ministry of Education has put this program on its list of Ministry-recognized cross-disciplinary school-to-work programs. www.progettogreenjobs.eu
Since 2015 in Lombardy the Green Jobs program has involved
- over 700 classes
- 13,700 students
- more than 5,000 individual interviews
- 196 presentations by people from businesses
- 200 green enterprises
From school year 2018-’19 the green entrepreneurship program has been extended to schools in other regions of Italy through the collaboration of various banking foundations that sit on ACRI Committee for Sustainable Development including: Fondazione CRT, Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, Fondazione Carispezia, Fondazione Caritro, Fondazione Cariparo, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Perugia, Fondazione Tercas and Fondazione Carisal.
For more information please contact:
Noemi Canevarolo noemicanevarolo@fondazionecariplo.it