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The role of green, social, and digital skills in transforming the creative and cultural sectors  

By Herman Bashiron Mendolicchio (ECBN/CreativeFed) and María Cristina Ortega and Arkaitz Celaá (3Walks)

The cultural and creative industries (CCIs) are experiencing a profound shift in the varieties of skills and mindsets required to thrive. As sustainability, community engagement, and digital innovation turned out to be core strategic priorities, there is now a growing demand for green, social, and digital skills across the sector. These are no longer seen as complementary to creative expertise—they are becoming fundamental to how value is created, shared, and sustained. This evolving skill landscape reflects broader transformations in how creative work is conceived, delivered, and connected to societal and environmental goals.

The CRAFT-IT4SD project has been deeply engaged with these shifts, particularly within the fields of craft and fashion. Both sectors, while traditionally rooted in material expertise and heritage knowledge, are becoming experimental grounds for innovation. What’s clear is that new professional profiles are emerging, ones that combine environmental awareness, social responsiveness, and technological fluency with the aesthetic, manual, and cultural dimensions of creative work. CRAFT-IT4SD has sought not only to identify these shifts but to accompany them through experimentation, learning labs, and new models of collaboration.

Green skills: Reimagining sustainability through craft and creativity

Environmental responsibility is no longer confined to materials sourcing or waste reduction; it is increasingly embedded in the very ethos of creative practice. Green skills now encompass everything from circular design principles and sustainable supply chains to ecological storytelling and low-impact production methods. Across the CRAFT-IT4SD pilot clusters, these skills are being tested and developed through climate-impact assessments, material innovation, and circular business modelling. Craft and fashion professionals are not just responding to sustainability trends—they are helping redefine what sustainable creativity can look like in a world that urgently demands new ecological narratives.

Social skills: Community-centered design and participatory ecosystems

Creativity flourishes in dialogue—with communities, collaborators, and diverse publics. The rise of participatory design, socially engaged art, and local co-creation practices reflects a shift in the role of creative professionals—from individual authors to facilitators of collective processes. In this context, social skills—such as cultural mediation, active listening, collaboration, and ethical engagement—become crucial. CRAFT-IT4SD supports these capacities by fostering ecosystem-based approaches, connecting micro-enterprises, artists, local authorities, and training providers. These ecosystems aren’t just networks—they are laboratories for social innovation, where creativity meets care, inclusion, and civic impact.

Digital skills: Expanding access, visibility, and resilience

Digitalisation has changed not only how cultural products are distributed, but how they are imagined, made, and experienced. From online marketplaces and digital archiving to virtual exhibitions and AI-assisted design, digital tools have become indispensable to resilience and growth in the sector. Yet beyond basic tech literacy, what is needed now is a critical and creative engagement with technology—digital fluency with a purpose.

In the CRAFT‑IT4SD project, this includes the use of immersive technologies, remote collaboration platforms, and eco‑impact tracking through digital tools (e.g., software‑supportedLife Cycle Assessment, allowing creatives to digitally calculate and visualize the environmental footprint of products or practices—from material sourcing to end-of-life—via intuitive, data-driven interfaces) demonstrating how digitalisation can serve both artistic integrity and sustainability goals.

Toward a new culture of making: Interconnected skills, systemic change

What emerges from the intersection of these three skill sets is not merely a better-equipped workforce, but a fundamentally different way of working and thinking in the cultural and creative sectors. The creative professional of tomorrow is not defined solely by their technical mastery or artistic vision, but by their ability to navigate systems—ecological, technological, and social—with creativity, ethics, and adaptability.

CRAFT-IT4SD contributes to this shift not only by delivering training modules and digital resources but by nurturing a new culture of making—one that is collaborative, sustainable, and future-oriented. The project’s pilot activities, learning communities, and multi-stakeholder partnerships are more than tools for education; they are platforms for experimentation, transformation, and policy learning.

As the project continues, its role becomes clearer: to help shape a sector that is not just reactive to transition, but proactive in designing alternatives—rethinking materials, processes, narratives, and economies. Craft and fashion, far from being marginal or outdated, are proving to be strategic sites for imagining and practicing what a triple transition—green, digital, and social—can look like when rooted in creativity, care, and community.

References

  • CRAFT-IT4SD. (2024). Pilot ecosystem playbooks and learning lab summaries. Retrieved from https://craft-it4sd.eu/results/
  • Kofler, I., & Walder, M. (2024). “Crafts and their social imaginary: How technological development shapes the future of the crafts sector”. Social Sciences, 13(3), 137. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13030137
  • VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. (2022). New business models and product design enhance circular economy of textiles in Finland [Press release]. Retrieved from https://www.vttresearch.com/en/news-and-ideas/new-business-models-and-product-design-enhance-circular-economy-textiles-finland