It promotes job creation and green companies. Taking advantage of the growth opportunities offered by the environment, it provides useful tools for workers and companies, helping them to improve and promote employment and facilitating the development of ideas and projects for people with entrepreneurial initiative.

The Ministry’s Empleaverde Program for the Ecological Transition is the initiative of the Biodiversity Foundation for the promotion and improvement of employment, entrepreneurship and the environment. It is co-financed by the European Social Fund (ESF) within the framework of the Operational Programme for Employment, Training and Education 2014-2020. Through the Empleaverde Programme, the Biodiversity Foundation acts as a bridge between employment policy and environmental policy with a double objective:

• That the environment and sustainability are the foundations for better jobs and more competitive companies.
• That workers and companies are key actors in improving the environment.

The European Union’s (EU) Europe 2020 Strategy for Growth and Jobs recognises the importance of the transition to a green and resource-efficient economy to achieve smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. That is why the ESF will contribute to the implementation of this strategy by creating more and better jobs and a more inclusive society. Taking advantage of the real growth opportunities offered by economic sectors linked to the environment, the empleaverde Programme aims to create jobs, improve employability and support the creation of companies in the green and blue economy, with a special focus on a low-carbon economy, a circular economy and the Natura 2000 Network. The Biodiversity Foundation carries out its activity as the managing body of the ESF through the publication of calls for subsidies as well as through its own projects such as the Emprendeverde Network.

The projects address two thematic blocks:

• Green economy, which contributes to the emergence of new models of sustainable production and consumption, in turn generating social and environmental benefits in the territory and favouring the creation of new jobs.
• Blue economy, a concept that refers to an economy based on the sustainable development of the oceans. It contributes to international competitiveness, resource efficiency, job creation and the birth of new sources of growth, safeguarding biodiversity.

During this new period, the empleaverde Programme will support more than 50,000 people and 3,000 companies, and it is expected to achieve, among others, the following results:

• 4,800 unemployed will join the labour market.
• More than 3,000 entrepreneurs will receive support for the creation and/or improvement of their company.
• 24,000 people will obtain a qualification.
• More than 6,000 workerswill improve their situation in the labour market.