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How can “Green Guidance” help in shaping a greener

and more ecological future for all?

A lookback to the Austrian Euroguidance Conference 2021

It is a coincidence, but also very telling, that the Austrian Euroguidance conference in November 2021
took place at the same time as the crucial final phase of the Glasgow Climate summit. Answers to the
existential threats of climate change are increasingly being sought by people when they are taking deci-
sions about education and career paths. The conference focused on what impulses career guidance can
provide in shaping a greener and more ecological future for all. The event was linked to the objectives
of the new Erasmus+ 2021-2027 programme, the European Green Deal, and the European Skills Agenda.

“Green guidance” Plant highlighted the important link between social
justice and Green Guidance, both profoundly linked to
“The concept of ‘Green Guidance’ gives a broader per-
spective to career choices by asking the simple question: sustainability issues. The topic of “Green Guidance”,
What are the implications of my career choice in terms which Plant developed 25 years ago, has found its way
of sustainability?” - Prof. Peter Plant said in his keynote into the discourses and practices of career guidance
on ‘Sustainability, Green Guidance, and Utopia’. Plant, during the last couple of years, including a deepening
who describes himself as a “lifelong utopian”, diagnosed conversation in Ireland. Jennifer McKenzie, Director
a paradigm shift in the role of guidance: “Green Guid- at the Irish National Centre for Guidance in Education
ance takes career-decisions centre stage, to a higher (NCGE), outlined in her speech how the Irish National
note of personal commitment, societal involvement, Forum on Guidance (organised by NCGE, which also
and meaningfulness. In relation to globalisation, and to hosts the Irish Euroguidance Centre) introduced the
social justice, it places guidance in a central global po- idea of lifelong guidance in promoting sustainable de-
sition: environmental issues and sustainability concerns velopment and change and how this initiated a genuine
know no boundaries.” wider discussion.

Euroguidance Insight Magazine Issue 2/2022