Sustainable Transitions to an Automation and Green-Worker Synchronicity?

How are craftspeople that are working in new green-worker industries affected by the rise of the robots, automation and pre-fabrication in regards to the housing-sector? This paper juxtaposes the seemingly opposing roles of the machines which are outsourcing more and more of human jobs, and the traditionally conservative building-sector industry, who are currently in the transition to a greener-building standard. Previous research shows that buildings use about 40% of the total global energy-consumption, and is seen as one of the key areas where climate mitigation can be enforced. As a paradox, the political incentives to greener buildings for a better environmental-future have the potential to lower employment rates by outsourcing new, green tasks to automation. Sustainable transition is thus not necessarily sustainable on the individual level for the workers affected. The research is founded in a project critically investigating the roles of craftspeople in contemporary society, seeing how they do the transition to a greener building sector “in action”, focusing on their “expertise-upgrading” and social roles, and if the sustainable transition is seen as “just” by them, or if it is just “another day at work”. The goal of the paper is to shine light on the synchronicity rather than then oppositeness of green-workers and automation, seeing how do craftspeople enact their new role as green workers.