Powering futures, bridging inequalities
- Gilles Vermot Desroches
- 22 Dec 2025
- 5 min read
“Skills development is critical for climate action, particularly for young people and underserved communities. That’s where energy technology, digital tools, and vocational training play an instrumental role in building a more sustainable and resilient future.”
- Gilles Vermot Desroches, Corporate Citizenship and Institutional Affairs SVP
- 17%youth unemployment across South America
- <60%children completing secondary school in remote areas
- 60%of renewables in region’s electricity generation
As South America continues to navigate an intensifying decade of climate urgency, the region must also contend with deepening social and economic pressures: youth unemployment remains above 17% across Latin America and the Caribbean, while rural education access lags significantly, with UNESCO reporting that fewer than 60% of children in remote areas complete secondary school.
These overlapping challenges unfold in parallel with the global energy transition. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), renewables already account for nearly 60% of South America’s electricity generation, led by hydropower, but the region must double its clean energy capacity by 2030 to meet climate goals.
This dual reality calls for decisive, inclusive solutions that advance both environmental resilience and social equity.
At the recent COP30 UN Climate Change Conference, hosted at the heart of the continent in Brazil, Schneider Electric leadership conveyed a clear message: as the world faces a predicted shortage of 2.8 million electricians globally by 2030, and women representing only 24% of the current energy sector workforce, climate action cannot succeed without the requisite aligned skills development, particularly for young people and underserved communities.
It is also here that energy technology, digital tools, and vocational training play an instrumental role in shaping a more sustainable and desirable future. Our ‘Youth Education & Entrepreneurship’ Program, supported by the Schneider Electric Foundation, has already empowered over one million young people worldwide with technical, digital, and future-relevant training.
Training for much-needed energy management skills, now rapidly accelerating across Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, and Peru, demonstrates that modern technical and vocational education and training (TVET), when mobile, modular, and context-specific, is a social game changer.
South America’s vast geography presents unique educational challenges: from remote Amazonian communities to informal settlements and widely dispersed rural populations. UNESCO notes that rural students are 20% less likely to access secondary education compared to urban peers, underscoring why adapted education models are essential.
The Schneider Electric Foundation addresses this challenge head-on with mobile schools, floating classrooms, modular labs, and digital twins which simulate real-world scenarios in a virtual setting, and in-prison learning units. These models prove that effective technical training can reach anyone, wherever they are and align with country-level climate ambitions.
Drawing from our field-proven models, we call on policymakers, industry leaders, and civil society to prioritize a new vision of inclusive renewable and digital education:
1. Invest in modular and mobile training infrastructure
Delivering climate-relevant skills at scale requires solutions that are flexible, inclusive, and grounded in proven success across South America.
Similarly, Peru’s 'IoT Bench in a Suitcas' offers a portable Industry 4.0 lab used across dispersed TVET centers, while Argentina’s Container Schools with the Foundation Educando support 30 institutions with modular learning spaces for renewable energy and automation.
These approaches are well suited to rural and Amazonian territories, refugee and internally displaced communities, and regions with limited physical infrastructure, and should become regional standards to overcome geographic and economic barriers.
2. Integrate circular economy and energy skills
Equally critical is the integration of renewable energy skills across all learning environments. E-waste repair labs, solar micro-training modules, and renewable energy workshops have proven globally effective and can be adapted for informal settlements and even prisons, ensuring that underserved populations are not excluded from the emerging green economy.
Countries such as Colombia have advanced this thinking through mobile benches developed with the technological university institution (ITM), enabling automation and renewable energy training across 11 low-resource schools, complemented by a long-term, five-year partnership focused on scalable green skills development.
These modules must link directly to renewable employment pipelines, to ensure that training leads to meaningful and sustainable livelihoods.
3. Recognize prisons as environments for reintegration
Brazil’s ‘Mobile Benches in Prisons’ have set a regional benchmark: Schneider Electric, in partnership with Unilins-Centro Universitário de Lins, has delivered certified Electrician Installer training inside 19 prisons across São Paulo State.
Over 1,000 incarcerated individuals have already earned credentials in electrical installation and renewable energy systems, supported by our technical curriculum, volunteer mentors, and government collaboration on certification and reintegration pathways.
This model, human-centred, innovation-driven, inclusive, and explicitly aligned with Education 5.0, demonstrates how modular technical training can reduce recidivism while preparing workers for the renewable energy sectors of the future.
4. Foster public-private-civil society partnerships
Climate-smart education is most effective when industry, NGOs, and government collaborate to align national climate strategies with practical skills development.
Our established partnerships with organizations such as Educando in Argentina, SENAI in Brazil, ITM in Colombia, and national Ministries of Education illustrate the importance of multi-stakeholder cooperation in delivering high-impact vocational training that responds directly to labor-market needs.
Experience in Brazil and Colombia confirms that inclusive mentorship and women-focused outreach increase participation of girls and women in technical and renewable energy sectors.
The road to climate equity in South America is paved not only with solar panels and microgrids, but with inclusive, dignified, and adaptive education systems.
Underserved, rural and remote areas need more learning models that are mobile, localized, technologically advanced, and aligned with the social and environmental priorities shaping a sustainable future.
Since field trials have proven successful, it’s now time to partner and scale solutions across the region, ensuring that the energy transition empowers every young person, not just with clean energy, but with opportunity, equity, and lasting impact.
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