The conference "Greening the Labour Market" which took place in the European Parliament in Brussels on the 30th June2011, honoured the women. Six female speakers from Europe and the U.S. followed Ms Schroedter's invitation and gave an insight into their efforts in promoting a green and sustainable economy.  Please find here conference report, videos, photos und further information to the results of the conference. We offer a PDF download of this report here.

• Report to Panal 1: Promoting a socially just transition and decent green work
• Report to Panel 2: Green Jobs for Women

The conference was opened by a short presentation of the European Commission's plans for the promotion of Green Jobs, with a focus on the planned Green Paper on Green Jobs by DG Employment and Social Affairs. The following two panels provided space to debate the role of enterprises, trade unions and environmental organisations in promoting green jobs and decent work for a social just transition, as well as focusing on the question of gender equality in the green growth sectors.

"Green growth and Green Jobs" is one of focus areas in the work programme of the Employment and Social Affairs Commissioner Laszlo Andor, confirmed Gyula Hegyi, Member of the Cabinet of Commissioner Andor, in his intervention. Currently the DG is preparing a Green Paper on Green Jobs, which will be published towards the end of 2011/beginning of 2012. Elisabeth Schroedter, rapporteur for the European Parliament's resolution on "Developing the job potential of a new sustainable economy"1 in 2010 and continuously working for green decent work in a socially just transition, pointed to the contradictory messages from the Commission regarding the promotion of Green Jobs. On the one hand, many documents such as for example the Commission Communication "Regional Policy contributing to sustainable growth in Europe 2020" highlight the huge job potential of modernising the insulation of building and eco-innovation, on the other hand documents such as the communication on "New Skills for New Jobs"3 misses the opportunity to respond to the challenges of the transition to Green Jobs completely. Gyula Hegyi admitted that the Commission is still working on a holistic approach on the issue and promised that the Green Paper will play a role in this context.