COMMIT has been active on several fronts. The low-carbon transition brings significant opportunities and challenges for the labour market and regional economies alike. As an Interreg Europe project, COMMIT works to help regional governments support small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in accessing financing, innovation, information, and skills. EPRC’s COMMIT team has been driving this research forward so read on for insights into how authorities can improve SME access to skills!
What’s Driving Skills Demand?
What’s actually driving demand for these skills in the first place? Our research points to five interconnected drivers: demographic constraints, the pace of the industrial transition, regional economic structures, infrastructure readiness and education systems. Each brings its own mix of challenges and opportunities, and no two regions face the same combination.
Equipping SMEs to Thrive
Understanding what’s driving demand is only half the picture; the other half is knowing what to do about it. The shift to a low-carbon economy is partly technological while it also demands new skills, new mindsets and inclusive strategies. For SMEs, that’s both a challenge and an opportunity: staying competitive means building the capacity to adapt, innovate and lead. A COMMIT partner assessment maps how regions across Europe are prioritising this support, from technical expertise to human-centric competencies to inclusive access.
The Challenges of Skills Training
We know what skills SMEs need and why demand is rising, so what’s standing in the way? The barriers are rarely simple: local industrial legacies, financial pressures, structural limitations and workforce composition all compound each other, and the pace of the transition itself adds pressure. In Norway, for instance, gaps in sustainability-reporting knowledge don’t just complicate regulatory compliance; they also make it harder for SMEs to attract investors in the first place.
Green Skills: Broadening Access
These barriers don’t fall evenly. The low-carbon shift is accelerating, but who actually gets to participate? From women entering STEM to older workers moving into new roles, broadening access isn’t a side issue; it’s what makes the workforce resilient in the first place. COMMIT’s research traces the path from exclusive default practices towards strategies that genuinely open the door.
The Power of Partnerships
So what actually helps against barriers this structural and this unevenly distributed? Governance is a good starting point, particularly multi-stakeholder coordination and public-private partnerships that help SMEs cut through barriers to funding, training, and innovation.
Making Training Work for SMEs
Governance sets the conditions, but it still comes down to whether individual SMEs can actually take part. What shapes whether an SME can, or will, engage with low-carbon training? COMMIT’s research narrows it down to a few recurring factors: cost, scheduling and pace, and language, among others, each with practical fixes governments and policymakers can act on directly.
Training in Many Forms
Getting SMEs to the table is one thing; how the training reaches them once they’re there is another. Delivery format matters as much as content. Differences in format, location, or technological requirements can quietly exclude the people training is meant to reach. The fix isn’t one format, but a mix: in-person, online, modular and immersive learning, combined deliberately so training stays inclusive, engaging and adaptable.
Measuring Training Impact
Getting the format right is still no guarantee the training is actually working. Equipping workers with the right skills is only half the job; offering training isn’t the same as it working. Programmes lose effectiveness without evaluation, and feedback is what lets providers refine courses, align with industry needs and confirm learners are gaining skills that really matter. COMMIT’s research sets out practical ways to measure that impact, flagging both what’s working and where the gaps remain.
Building Sustainable Employability
Zoom out from any single training programme, though, and a bigger question remains: what are all these efforts building towards? We expect people to work longer, adapt faster and stay motivated throughout their careers, yet most workplaces are still designed as if lives never change. That gap is the core problem behind sustainable employability, which Tinka van Vuuren defines as a person’s ability and willingness to do current and future work in a healthy, productive, fulfilling way. It’s shaped by how well talent is deployed, how job requirements evolve, how workplaces handle stress, bullying and shifting life stages. When SMEs combine financial incentives, continuous development, well-being initiatives and real flexibility, people don’t just stay in work longer, they want to.
Interested in the details? Explore extended articles and full briefing papers by clicking on the links!