Sustainable work: national perspectives and the valorisation of work in Europe

On 25 September 2015, the 193 countries of the UN General Assembly signed the 2030 Development Agenda which includes a transition to sustainable work. Based on an empirical study conducted at the University of Applied Labour Studies of the Federal Employment Agency in Schwerin, Germany, comparing policies, discourses and actors regarding sustainable development we analyse national perspectives and the valorisation of work in Europe in relation to sustainable work. We offer a definition of the term sustainable work pointing out central aspects of sustainable work. Differentiating between different welfare state models (Liberal Anglo-Saxon, Conservative or continental European, Nordic or social democratic Scandinavian, the Mediterranean welfare states and the Eastern European transition states, expanding the topology outlined by Esping-Andersen) we analyse the developments regarding sustainable work in nine European countries along four differentiated orientations on how work is addressed in nationally-specific, official governmental and civil society sustainability discourses and strategies, and which key values can be identified as underlying these discourses. We summarise the findings on value standards for sustainable work and the dependencies between thematised values. Finally, we present the different developmental pathways present in Europe, concluding that the valorisation of work and the values of sustainable work occur only in relatively enclosed spaces and thus far, any broader recourse to them does not seem to have any majority political backing, nor to be needed for the valorisation of capital in production policies.