Successfully integrating environmental skills into vocational education involves giving real decision-making power to industry stakeholders while maintaining coordinated support structures

This 2024 study examines how Denmark successfully integrated environmental skills into its vocational education and training (VET) programs, offering valuable lessons for other countries seeking to prepare workers for the green economy while ensuring favourable outcomes for all.

The article focuses on two successful case studies: a program for electricians and a program for plumbers. The authors gathered primary data through interviews with 29 policy actors from the VET system collected in 2023 and 2024. They complemented this with secondary quantitative data and various policy documents, including strategic and scientific policy reports produced by the government or trade organizations, educational executive orders, and secondary literature on Danish VET.

In Denmark VET training mostly occurs through company-sponsored apprenticeships accompanied by a compulsory school-based component. It is a collectivist system, as employers are required to train broadly in line with national standards. The article reports that in 2022, 28 percent of the Danish working population aged 15–69 years had a VET degree and about 20 percent of youth decide to enter VET after 9th/10th grade (Danmarks Statistik, 2023). A typical VET program lasts 3.5 years with a 2:1 split between work- and school-based training, although there is considerable variation between programs.

The research found that both of the programs studied managed to increase student enrolment, attract stronger students, and establish themselves as key players in Denmark's green transition, while maintaining their role in providing good jobs for students from non-college backgrounds. The study finds that this success stems from Denmark’s "polycentric governance" approach, where decision-making power is shared between multiple semi-autonomous groups rather than controlled centrally. This system works through trade committees that include both employers and unions, who jointly govern the content and structure of vocational programs.

Three key factors made this approach effective:

1. First, the trade committees had real autonomy to make decisions about program content, allowing them to respond quickly to emerging green skills needs while ensuring changes remained practical for employers.

2. Second, the system encouraged building trust and shared understanding between employers and unions about what green transformation means for their industries. This was achieved through jointly commissioned research reports and collaborative forums that helped stakeholders develop common goals.

3. Third, the governance structure supported continuous adaptation through horizontal learning (committees learning from each other) and vertical integration (coordination between local, regional, and national levels). 

However, the paper emphasizes that this approach isn't perfect. As programs added more complex green skills, some struggled to maintain accessibility for all. The researchers argue this shows the importance of having strong state support alongside autonomous governance—for example, through preparatory programs that help struggling students meet new requirements.

For practitioners, the key takeaway is that successfully greening vocational education requires:

• Giving significant autonomy to industry stakeholders while maintaining coordination

• Creating forums for building trust and shared understanding between different groups

• Establishing mechanisms for continuous learning and adaptation

• Providing strong state support to maintain favourable outcomes for all alongside green transformation

The key takeaways from this research for US-based environmental educators are that we should seek to build collaborative structures that enable stakeholders to jointly develop and continuously evolve their approach to green education rather than employing a top-down approach.