By Erma Edera A labor official believes the local economy can meet both social and environmental goals with the creation of green jobs. "Today, the need lies in having more decent jobs available for our people, protecting our environment, and promoting ecological integrity. This is why we are helping to facilitate the creation of green jobs to achieve all these," said Bernard Paul Mangulabnan, acting chief labor and employment officer of the Institute for Labor Studies, Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) during the Barangay Walang Iwanan (BWI) Summit. BWI Summit 2019 is a collaborative effort among leading non-profit organization Gawad Kalinga, French NGO Acted, as well as the French discussion platform Convergence which aims to gather stakeholders to discuss and act on urgent social and environmental issues, transforming Filipino communities toward the 3Zero Philippines goal (Zero Exclusion, Zero Carbon, and Zero Poverty). Among the key topics discussed during the summit was the impact of Green Jobs, and how it is being heavily promoted in the country. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), Green Jobs are "decent jobs that contribute to preserve or restore the environment, be they in traditional sectors such as manufacturing and construction, or in new, emerging green sectors such as renewable energy and energy efficiency." ILO also said green jobs are those that "help improve energy and raw materials efficiency, limit greenhouse gas emissions, minimize waste and pollution, protect and restore systems, and support adaptation to the effects of climate change." The scant information about green jobs in the current Philippine labor market, in spite of the passage of the Green Jobs Act (Republic Act 10771) in 2016, may be an indicator of the urgency for employers in both the private and public sectors to ramp up the creation of these jobs. "The creation of green jobs is not a stand-alone policy. It involves a lot of factors, the environment, economy, society, educational and skills, among others. The structural changes will definitely be a challenge as production and consumption will be both affected," said Gwyneth Palmos, ILO consultant. "The ILO has been providing support to enable the Philippine government, employers, workers and other stakeholders to transition into the greening of the economy and we are glad to see much progress in the country," Palmos added. Since 2016, the ILO has been assisting the Philippines in adopting and implementing the ILO's guidelines for a "Just Transition towards Environmentally Sustainable Economies and Societies for All". Among other activities, this initiative has resulted in the development of an "intervention model at the industry, enterprise and local levels with capacity-building activities for all stakeholders to showcase measures associated with the just transition," a report of the ILO in its 2018 World Employment Social Outlook: Greening with Jobs showed, The Just Transition initiative includes the establishment of the statistical system to measure employment in the environmental sector and green jobs, development of the assessment and certification system for granting the Green Jobs Act incentives, and integrating green jobs and just transition measures in national and sectoral policies and frameworks. "The powerful way to combine social and environmental development is through constant promotion of green jobs. It set economies in reinforcing a win-win trajectory," said Palmos. "In reducing the environmental impact of industries and sectors, we increase the ability to cope with climate change and scarce resources, while generating decent employment. This way, we meet both our social and environmental goals, which eventually makes economic growth more sustainable,” she added.