India’s green economy could support nearly 1.3 crore jobs by 2035, but the opportunity will depend on whether education and workforce systems can supply people with the practical skills required by emerging sectors. A new report by the International Forum for Environment, Sustainability and Technology, or iFOREST, identifies a widening gap between formal qualifications, vocational training and the needs of employers in renewable energy, green hydrogen, electric mobility, the circular economy and nature-based solutions.
The report, India’s Green Jobs Moment: Pathways to Build a Future-Ready Workforce, estimates that green sectors could support 98.5 lakh jobs by 2030. That number could rise to nearly 1.3 crore by 2035. The projections are not only about new technology companies or specialist engineering roles. They include employment connected to waste management, pollution control, forest restoration, agroforestry, mangrove restoration and other activities that will be delivered across cities, districts and rural regions.
This makes the green-jobs question an urban question as well. The sectors named in the report are closely connected to how cities consume energy, move people, handle waste, manage water and respond to climate risks. Electric mobility requires technicians, charging infrastructure workers and maintenance personnel. Circular-economy systems depend on collection, sorting, processing and recycling networks. Nature-based solutions require workers who can restore ecosystems and maintain them over time. The transition will therefore be shaped not only by national targets but also by local labour markets and municipal systems.
The scale of the opportunity is significant in a country where people aged 15 to 29 account for around 27% of the population, according to the report. Yet only 5.3% of this group has technical education and about 5% has formal vocational training. The mismatch suggests that a large potential workforce may not be prepared for occupations that demand applied knowledge, equipment-handling ability and experience in the field.
The report’s central warning is that job creation cannot be separated from the design of training systems. Shamika Ravi, a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, said that finding skilled manpower was becoming the biggest constraint to business growth. “We have degrees, but we don’t have skills, and the market is now saying it will reward only skill,” she said. Ravi also argued that skilling policy must respond to local labour markets rather than focus only on training targets. Her formulation places the emphasis on outcomes: the purpose of training is employment, not simply enrolment or certification.
That distinction matters because green employment is unlikely to be distributed evenly. A renewable-energy installation in one district, a waste-processing facility in another and a coastal restoration programme elsewhere will generate different requirements. A national course catalogue cannot by itself establish whether a local employer needs solar technicians, electric-vehicle mechanics, waste auditors, water-management workers or restoration specialists. The report’s proposal for district-level cells is an attempt to address this administrative problem by mapping local demand, connecting employers with training institutions and supporting apprenticeships.
The proposed institutional structure includes national and state-level Green Jobs and Skilling Missions, supported by these district cells. The model would connect three systems that often operate separately: education, workforce training and employment. It would also promote recognition of prior learning, which could help workers move into new occupations without discarding skills acquired in conventional industries.
The report provides evidence that such transitions may be possible in several sectors. It found that around 89% of assessed coal-mining roles were highly transferable to metal mining. It also found that 90% of automobile-sector roles and 71% of thermal-power roles had high or medium transferability to emerging occupations. These figures do not mean that workers can move automatically into new jobs. They indicate that the transition may require targeted retraining rather than a complete restart for every worker.
This is particularly relevant to cities and industrial regions facing changes in energy, transport and manufacturing. A shift towards electric mobility, for example, may alter the skills required in vehicle servicing and component maintenance. Changes in power generation may affect workers associated with thermal plants. Waste and resource-recovery systems may create new occupations while also formalising or restructuring existing work. The question is whether public policy will recognise these occupational pathways early enough to prevent avoidable disruption.
The report also identifies a problem with the duration and depth of current training. Around 43% of formal training courses last less than six months, while many emerging green occupations require deeper technical and practical skills. Short courses may be useful for orientation or basic certification, but they may not provide enough time for workers to understand complex equipment, safety procedures, environmental standards or operational systems.
Its recommendations include project-based learning in schools on clean energy, waste, water and climate resilience. This approach would introduce green-sector knowledge before young people enter the workforce and could make environmental systems more tangible than classroom instruction alone. However, the report’s emphasis on project-based learning also underlines the need for institutions capable of delivering practical education, including trainers, equipment, employer partnerships and places for apprenticeships.
Niranjan Kumar Sudhansu, additional secretary in the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, said green jobs and skills were expected to be incorporated into the ongoing revision of the National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. That process could provide an official framework for responding to the demand identified by iFOREST. The report does not, however, establish how quickly the proposed missions would be created, how they would be financed or which agency would be responsible for measuring employment outcomes.
Those implementation details will determine whether the projected numbers become a labour-market reality. Green jobs span ministries and administrative boundaries. Renewable energy, transport, waste, forestry, industry, education and skill development each have different institutions and funding channels. Cities and districts may also have different levels of capacity to identify employers, maintain training partnerships and track whether trainees find work.
The proposed district cells are therefore more than a training-delivery mechanism. They would be an information bridge between national policy and local economic conditions. Without such a bridge, training may continue to be designed around available programmes rather than actual demand. Employers may still report shortages even while institutions report large numbers of trained candidates. Workers, meanwhile, may receive certificates that do not translate into stable employment.
The report’s estimates also broaden the meaning of a green workforce. Nature-based solutions are projected to account for around 41.5 lakh jobs, including work in agroforestry, forest restoration and mangrove restoration. This places ecological restoration alongside energy and mobility as a major source of potential employment. It also shows that the transition will not be confined to highly urbanised technology sectors. The employment system will need to support a range of technical, field-based and maintenance roles.
For urban administrations, the implications are direct. Waste management and pollution control require local contracts, operating systems and trained personnel. Climate resilience depends on workers who can support water management, ecological restoration and risk-reduction projects. Electric mobility requires infrastructure that can be installed, operated and repaired. If city governments adopt new technologies or environmental programmes without building a supporting workforce, implementation can remain dependent on outside contractors and fragmented capacity.
The iFOREST report links this challenge to India’s demographic advantage, its Viksit Bharat 2047 ambitions and its 2070 net-zero target. Those long-term goals will require institutions to connect projected demand with actual employment pathways. The available evidence establishes the scale of the potential opportunity and the size of the training gap. It does not yet establish whether the proposed national, state and district mechanisms will be implemented at the required speed or whether they will produce sustained employment.
What deserves monitoring now is not only the number of green courses launched, but also the number of workers placed, retained and able to progress in the occupations they enter. The success of India’s green jobs moment will ultimately depend on whether education, training, employers and public agencies operate as one workforce system rather than as separate programmes.
