The Secretary of State for the Environment, Federico Ramos, spoke this week at the round table on Employment and the Green Economy within the framework of the Informal Council of Ministers of Environment and Employment held in Milan (Italy), where he stressed that “the green economy is an engine of employment in itself and means the creation of many jobs”.
 
The Secretary of State for the Environment, Federico Ramos, spoke this week at the round table on Employment and the Green Economy within the framework of the Informal Council of Ministers of Environment and Employment held in Milan (Italy), where he stressed that “the green economy is an engine of employment in itself and means the creation of many jobs“.
 
Ramos, who heads the Spanish delegation in this Informal Council, has valued the level of employment generated by activities linked to water and waste management, attention to the climate and the improvement of energy efficiency, the management of natural parks and ecotourism activities. “The experience in Spain is that these activities are little affected by the crisis and downward economic cycles,” he added.
 
The Secretary of State has highlighted the importance of training workers and professionals to meet these demands, thus generating “quality employment”. He also pointed out as “the best policies” those that “promote the participation of Administrations, private entities and civil society”.
 
In this context, he highlighted the success of the Empleaverde Programme, promoted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment, through the Biodiversity Foundation, “which has promoted in just over five years the creation of 300 companies, the promotion of 2,000 lines of business and reached more than 800,000 people, of which some 60,000 young people have received training”.
 
On this point, the Secretary of State also highlighted the importance of the Emprendeverde Network, which “encourages, energises and helps more than 5,000 entrepreneurs, with the collaboration of the most prestigious universities and business schools in Spain, to develop investment projects and other activities of the green economy”.
 
In his opinion, “training and employment in environmental activities can and should be developed together, and growth and employment policies must be at the heart of the political agenda; as growth will be green or it will not be, employment policy must go hand in hand with environmental policy,” Ramos argued.
 
The Secretary of State assured that “environmental objectives have an increasingly cross-cutting dimension and affect more sectors of the economy, so it is necessary to incorporate economic and social actors to participate in their formulation: social dialogue with companies, workers and civil society is essential”. he insisted.
 
Among the barriers that must be overcome to promote the green economy, he pointed out, are access to financing for SMEs and administrative obstacles for them. “It is important to lighten this procedure to the minimum necessary, as Spain has done with the Environmental Assessment Law,” he concluded.