Adjusting to a Greener World
Radical changes or continuing adaptation for workers and firms in France?
Abstract
Starting from the hypothesis that the greening of production supposedly impacts three interconnected levels (employment systems, value chains and company strategies, occupations, skills, and work activities), the article provide insights resulting from mixed method research conducted by a Cereq team from 2020 to 2023. Firstly, analysis of statistical Cereq databases display two types of macrolevel results: the distribution of young people across green and greening jobs is shaped by segmentation between low skilled and high skilled jobs; the scope and way environmental norms impact workers’ activities depends on workplace organisations and management practices. Secondly, a three cases qualitative study in the construction; food retailing, solidarity economy sectors, underlines the importance of the relationship between companies and the market. This linkage remains a determining factor setting two greening trends at work: making profitable what is virtuous or making virtuous what is profitable, each organisation being able to be situated on a continuum from one to the other of these principles. Moreover, whereas environmental norms constrain workers to integrate new operating methods, the company surveys show how essential voluntary standards can be in orienting the trajectory of structures towards a more advanced and complex consideration of ecology in their activities, articulated with the health of the workers, their working conditions and the collective organisation of daily work.
Keywords: Greening, dynamics, workers, collective skills, health at work, deliberation, path
dependency
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