India’s low-carbon transition is driving the emergence of new forms of “green” work, including solar installation, energy-efficiency retrofits, recycling, and circular-economy services, many of which are now facilitated by digital platforms. These platforms promise efficiency, transparency, and scalable service delivery; yet, emerging research shows that they rarely transform the structural precarity faced by informal workers. Evidence from waste systems, renewable-energy labour markets and platform-work studies indicates that while platforms can improve visibility, price discovery and access to formal contracts, they often reproduce existing hierarchies, fragmented employment relations, and exclusionary onboarding requirements.

India’s low-carbon transition, from rooftop solar and energy-efficiency retrofits to municipal recycling and circular-economy services, is creating new kinds of paid work. Digital platforms are increasingly mediating these “green” activities: routing recyclers, brokering solar installation crews, coordinating e-waste pick-up, and matching small contractors for urban greening. For policymakers, the promise is straightforward: platforms can scale green services quickly while creating livelihoods. But the labour question is urgent, since platformisation may either generate decent, stable jobs for the many informal workers who supply these services or simply digitise existing precarities. The existing evidence suggests a cautious answer: platforms create possibilities for improved visibility, price discovery and linkages to formal contracts, but they do not automatically change the structural precarity experienced by many informal green workers (Graham et al 2017; Wood et al 2019). Indian research on waste-sector integration underscores how caste, municipal governance failures and institutional misalignment block meaningful inclusion, even where technical interventions exist (Juárez Pastor et al 2024; Dias 2016; Shankar and Sahni 2018). 

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