Green infrastructure, or the strategic planning of spaces combining natural and semi-natural areas, is the new panacea to solve urban, environmental, and climate challenges. Governments have added it to their policy and agenda as a low-carbon way of urban planning that supports biodiversity and does climate adaptation

Most discussions and plans, however, are happening without the workers’ perspective. BWI is now taking the challenge and responsibility to build its definition and framework of Green Infrastructure and launched the Green Infrastructure Network (GIN) at a conference on 11-12 June 2026 in Geneva. Tos Añonuevo, BWI Assistant General Secretary, highlighted that workers’ existing trades and the knowledge they have will be crucial. It is also a way for workers to have a say on Just Transition and for BWI to move into a new organising frontier and engage in the present and future initiatives on green infrastructure.

The first panel, which featured unions in Global North countries, underlined that although there are good and well-resourced policies, finance always goes to the private sector, and there is over-reliance on subcontractors in various phases. Human rights are weakly incorporated in the plans. There is still a need to effectively address reliance on fossil fuels while providing insufficient support to renewable energy. There is also the challenge of how unions tackle the debate on cement, the world’s grey.

In the second panel, speakers from emerging economies highlighted the challenge of the lack of continuity as programs discontinue when governments fall to the Far Right. This is very crucial in the case of Brazil and other countries that are facing threats from fascist and far-right forces that are actively challenging progressive governments. At the same time, despite economic expansion, most workers are still in the informal sector, and this maintains inequalities. There is enormous potential to create millions of jobs; however, skills and information gaps persist. Workers continue to experience insufficient occupational health and safety measures, low wages, and limited collective bargaining power. Local elites often work with and support the interests of multinational corporations.

The panel on Lessons and Models on Union Organising and Social Dialogue in Green Infrastructure emphasised the need for workers to rediscover class politics and class contradictions. India’s SEWA model is a good example as it incorporates cross-cutting initiatives on poverty alleviation, energy saving, women’s empowerment, social and political power, youth, and labour organising.

The Plenary at the conference’s end asserted that in increasing global challenges, workers have an important role in climate justice and to call out greenwashing. Workers need to build power together and in solidarity with other social movements and to openly discuss how to overcome contradictions between different interests when they arise. The launch of the GIN was a promising start for a new organising framework. BWI unions have the responsibility to organise, educate the sector and the public, and build alliances to ensure green infrastructures are built with workers’ interests at the centre.