Environmental, social and economic sustainability as a trend in vocational education and training. OBS SFUVET Trends in Focus No 16.

• As multiple planetary boundaries are exceeded, the urgency of sustainability is increasing.
VET is a key lever for embedding environmental responsibility within economic and social
frameworks.
• In Swiss VET, sustainability is framed as a cross-cutting theme intended to systematically
integrate the three dimensions of environmental, social and economic sustainability.
• The three dimensions of sustainability interact in ways that create both opportunities through
mutually reinforcing effects and potential trade-offs when progress in one dimension undermines another.
• These interactions can be clearly illustrated by the example of the career choice process:
environmentally motivated interest in ‘green’ occupations among young people can be reinforced where these offer strong economic prospects. Trade-offs may arise, however, when
environmental considerations in career decisions are overridden by social and economic factors.
• VET stakeholders are tasked with identifying, balancing and addressing trade-offs between
the sustainability dimensions in ways that contribute to sustainable development over the long
term.