Understanding green jobs in the forest sector: Findings from a systematic literature review

The forest sector has undergone significant transformations driven by environmental and societal concerns, resulting in policies to promote sustainability, technological innovation, and the bioeconomy. These policies have had an impact on employment, with green jobs emerging as a potential outcome of an environmentally sustainable economy. However, for jobs to be considered ‘green’, they must meet criteria for decent work – criteria that are underexplored within the forest sector. This study conducts a systematic literature review (following the Reporting standards for Systematic Evidence Synthesis) to investigate what are green jobs in the forest sector, characterize these jobs and identify incentives that have promoted they. A total of 50 English-language publications were analysed. The findings indicated that while the forest sector has generated jobs with certain positive aspects of job quality (e.g., fair earnings), unfavourable characteristics persists (e.g., informal employment). Moreover, policies promoting green job often lack systematic assessment of the quality of the jobs they create. This study underscores the need for more robust data collection on job quality to inform policies that align sustainability objectives with decent work standards. It further revels the complex interplay between environmental goals and employment dynamics in the forest sector, emphasizing the importance of clear, operational standards for defining and supporting green jobs.