The challenge facing the renewable energy sector is not merely one of workforce shortages, but increasingly one of skills shortages. Recent evidence from the World Economic Forum shows that demand for green skills is growing significantly faster than the supply of workers who possess them. Employers across sectors identify skills gaps as one of the main barriers to transformation.
This skills gap creates a structural challenge for education and training systems. Traditional qualifications play a crucial role in preparing future workers, but qualification development, accreditation and curriculum revision processes often operate on timelines that are slower than the pace at which technologies, occupations and skills requirements evolve. In fast-moving sectors such as solar energy, offshore wind, battery technology and smart energy systems, waiting for full qualification reform may leave skills gaps unaddressed for years.
This challenge has led policymakers and practitioners to explore more flexible forms of learning and recognition. Microcredentials are increasingly viewed as one possible response to acquire new skills and competences.
The risk of widening skills inequalities
There is another challenge to tackle in particular technical sectors. An often overlooked challenge of the green and digital transition is the risk of widening existing skills inequalities. While much attention is given to emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, smart grids and digital twins, a significant share of the current workforce still lacks the foundational digital skills needed to participate fully in increasingly digital workplaces. This is also one of the outcomes of the needs analysis report of the Micret project.
If microcredentials are to support a just transition, they should not only address emerging skills, but also provide accessible entry points for workers who first need to strengthen their foundational digital competences. Microcredentials can play an important role in this regard by creating progressive ánd accessible learning pathways, ranging from basic digital literacy to advanced renewable energy competences, leaving no workers behind.
The need for a continuous cycle of upskilling
The World Economic Forum increasingly frames workforce development not as a one-off transition from education into employment, but as a continuous cycle of upskilling, reskilling and redeployment throughout a person’s career. This perspective aligns closely with the rationale behind microcredentials: short, targeted learning opportunities that can respond rapidly to emerging skills needs while supporting lifelong learning and labour market mobility.
The key question of microcredentials is whether they help workers acquire relevant skills and whether employers trust and recognise those skills. Recognition can take different forms: recognition by employers, by education providers, or by public authorities. While these forms of recognition often overlap, they serve different purposes.
As highlighted by Cedefop and OECD, trust depends on transparent learning outcomes, robust assessment, quality assurance and clear information on what learners can actually do after completing a credential. This suggests that the future European approach should not focus on standardising the content of microcredentials, but rather on creating a common framework for transparency, trust and interoperability.
Towards a European standardization of trust rather than content
This is where the European digital credential ecosystem becomes interesting. The European Learning Model (ELM) provides a common data structure for describing learning achievements, learning outcomes, assessment methods, workload, issuing bodies and quality assurance arrangements. Combined with the Europass Digital Credentials Infrastructure (EDCI), it enables credentials to be issued, shared and verified in a secure and interoperable manner across Europe. ELM and EDCI do not create recognition themselves; rather, they make credentials transparent, verifiable and interoperable. In addition to the ELM and EDCI, ESCO provides a common European language for describing skills and occupations. This can support the comparability of renewable energy microcredentials across countries and sectors. A perfect match of European tools.
For the renewable energy sector, a framework of trust is very important. The analysis carried out in the Micret project on current microcredentials show a large variety of microcredentials. Employers need to understand what a learner knows and is able to do, how these competences were assessed, and who stands behind the credential.
A European trust framework based on transparent learning outcomes, recognised quality assurance mechanisms and interoperable digital credentials creates a common language that allows different providers, sectors and countries to recognise and compare learning achievements. This is a prerequisite for labour mobility, cross-border recognition and lifelong learning.
The future European challenge…
The future European challenge is therefore not to create identical microcredentials across countries, but to create a shared framework that allows employers, learners and education providers to trust, understand and recognise skills regardless of where they were acquired. In this sense, Europe may need a common infrastructure for trust more than a common catalogue of credentials.
The policy experimentation project MiCRET offers an opportunity to explore which combinations of employer validation, quality assurance, digital credentialing and transparency are most effective in creating trust and recognition for renewable energy microcredentials.
References:
World Economic Forum (2025). The Future of Jobs Report 2025. Geneva: World Economic Forum. Available at: https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2025/
World Economic Forum (2024). Green jobs and green skills are growing – but there is a gap. Available at: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/02/green-jobs-green-skills-growth/
