What will tomorrow’s professions look like and how can vocational schools prepare young people for both a sustainable and digital future? Malte Schmidthals, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies and Technology Assessment (IZT) in Berlin, shares his perspective on the skills, challenges and opportunities ahead.
Green Professions of the Future
The conversation about green jobs often starts with entirely new occupations. Renewable energy technicians, for instance, are seen as pioneers of a sustainable future. But Schmidthals suggests that the bigger story lies elsewhere.
“More important than new professions are the necessary changes in the training and practice of ‘normal professions’ such as plumber or mechanic for heating and air conditioning,” he explains.
This shift requires more than just awareness. Students in these traditional fields need practical training that reflects new realities: working with renewable energies, installing heat pumps and systems for heat recovery or using AI and augmented reality in design processes. Schmidthals also reminds us that green professions are not only about environmental awareness but also about accessibility and inclusiveness. Designing bathrooms for elderly people or for wheelchair users, for example, is already part of building a sustainable and fairer future.
Challenges in Bringing AI and Sustainability into Classrooms
Despite the urgency, integrating sustainability and emerging technologies into curricula remains a struggle. Goals such as digitalization or climate awareness are often written into policy documents or program preambles but rarely filter down into everyday teaching.
“New content is often only included in general goal descriptions. When it comes to the practical side of training, these goals find no concrete time or space,” says Schmidthals.
This means that while strategies look progressive on paper, implementation sometimes lags behind. For Schmidthals, closing this gap is one of the central challenges facing VET systems today.
From Words to Practice
How can schools move from policy statements to meaningful action? Schmidthals points to the so-called Whole Institution Approach, a framework that insists schools themselves must embody the change they want to teach.
“It is important that there is no contradiction between theory and practice. If educational institutions talk about these topics, they must also implement them in practice. If institutions have a good infrastructure based on sustainable criteria, including appropriate IT equipment, the relevant technical content is more easily absorbed and sustainable behaviour becomes more easily a matter of course,” he highlights.
In other words, teaching about sustainability or digital transformation will not be effective if students do not see it in practice every day. A school that installs energy-efficient systems, reduces waste or invests in modern IT equipment sends a much stronger message than a textbook chapter ever could.
AI and Sustainability in Action
Real change, Schmidthals argues, comes when students are given the chance to apply new tools and values in their own learning. His projects provide tangible examples of this in both AI and sustainability.
In digital learning, AI is not treated as an abstract concept but as a tool students already use in their daily lives. “Whenever students are given research tasks in our projects, we let them use AI, because they do it in everyday life anyway,” he explains. However, they are not just told to use a single tool — they must explore different AIs and vary their questions. This way, they practice critical and conscious use, rather than passive reliance.
Schmidthals notes that another new initiative has just begun, using AI to select topics and difficulty levels tailored to each student. By making learning more individualized, vocational training can become both more engaging and more effective.
On the sustainability side, Schmidthals points to the KlimaRatSchule project. Here, students analysed their school’s footprint in energy use, nutrition, mobility and material consumption.
“These groups then developed suggestions for improvement. In a democratic process, the school participants decided which of these measures should be implemented and who would be responsible for them,” he explains. The result was a self-designed roadmap to greater sustainability and climate neutrality, owned and driven by the school community.
Teaching Sustainability
When it comes to curriculum design, a key question is whether sustainability should be taught as a separate subject or woven into all disciplines. Schmidthals is clear on his preference.
“It’s important that sustainability be integrated into individual subjects in a very practical way, not just mentioned in preambles,” he says. Biology, geography or politics can all provide opportunities for these lessons, making sustainability a recurring theme throughout schooling rather than an isolated topic.
This approach makes sustainability less of a distant concept and more of a lived reality, something students encounter in different contexts and levels of their education.
Vocational education is no longer only about equipping students with job-ready skills — it is about preparing them for a world that is green, digital and inclusive. Through his work, Schmidthals shows that while the challenges are real, the opportunities to innovate and empower the next generation are even greater.
He will also bring these perspectives to the RCF Annual Regional Conference Smart Balkans: Shaping Skills for a Sustainable, Competitive Future – Navigating VET in a Digital and AI World, joining a panel on how VET can respond to the rising demand for sustainability and ESG standards, and prepare the workforce for a green transition in the age of AI, on the path to achieving EU sustainability requirements.
Don’t miss the chance to be part of this important conversation! Register now and contribute to shaping the future of skills in the Western Balkans.