Just Transition Policies, Power Plant Workers and Green Entrepreneurs in Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria: Can Education and Retraining Meet the Challenge?

Nikolaos Apostolopoulos, Alexandros Kakouris (), Panagiotis Liargovas, Petar Borisov, Teodor Radev, Sotiris Apostolopoulos, Sofia Daskou and Eleni Ε. Anastasopoulou
Additional contact information
Nikolaos Apostolopoulos: Department of Management Science and Technology, University of the Peloponnese, 22100 Tripoli, Greece
Alexandros Kakouris: Department of Management Science and Technology, University of the Peloponnese, 22100 Tripoli, Greece
Petar Borisov: Department of Management and Marketing, Agricultural University of Plovdiv, 4000 Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Teodor Radev: Department of Management and Marketing, Agricultural University of Plovdiv, 4000 Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Sotiris Apostolopoulos: Department of Economics and Business, Neapolis University Pafos, Pafos 8042, Cyprus
Sofia Daskou: Department of Economics and Business, Neapolis University Pafos, Pafos 8042, Cyprus
Eleni Ε. Anastasopoulou: School of Agriculture and Food, University of Peloponnese, 22100 Tripoli, Greece

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 23, 1-21

Abstract: This study seeks to shed light on the changes currently occurring in Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria on the energy transition process by examining the relevant consequences for power plant workers in the green energy market. The main aim of this paper is to explore the impacts of the implemented policies on the labour force of electricity generation stations and to identify learning needs for new skills and competences. Thus, it explores the possibility to achieve a just transition by employing workers from the high-carbon energy sector to the renewable energy sector. Qualitative research was carried out to explore the views and expectancies of the above-mentioned people as well as to trace the perceptions of the stakeholders of the green energy industry. A total of 30 semi-structured interviews were conducted in the previously mentioned three countries, which also investigated relevant training and upskilling programmes. The findings revealed various types of educational needs and techniques that can be applied by training providers in accordance to the power plant worker’s views as well as the disciplines and specialities of the workforce that are suitable to receive the further fit for attending such programmes. Workers in Greece and Cyprus appeared more optimistic for this possibility compared to Bulgarian workers. Green entrepreneurs were also optimistic but worried for the rate of investments in the green sector. The current findings describe the backdrop that challenges future retraining programmes with regard to achieving just transition policies for this workforce.

Keywords: just transition; green energy policies; renewable energy sources; vocational training; upskilling; energy plant workforce; education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/23/16307/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/23/16307/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:23:p:16307-:d:1287701

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().