GreenCraft: AI in the skilled trades for the environmental economy

GreenCraft combines AI and skilled trades in a digital platform for environmental projects in North Rhine-Westphalia. The solution connects private, commercial, and industrial customers with qualified skilled trades businesses and funding agencies. It provides information on funding programs and supports project planning, implementation, and billing.

The project strengthens the environmental economy and creates a service ecosystem oriented toward the common good. The focus is on how AI-supported platform economics can accelerate environmental economic transformation through skilled trades.

The skilled trades in North Rhine-Westphalia comprise 196,000 registered companies with 1.2 million employees. These companies install thermal insulation, renewable energies, and innovative heating systems. They are at the heart of the environmental economic transformation. Without these skilled trades services, climate protection will not succeed.

Two transformations are taking place in parallel: digital technologies are changing the economy and society, while climate protection requires climate neutrality and the expansion of the environmental economy. The structural transformation in North Rhine-Westphalia is creating experiences that the project is utilizing.

GreenCraft aims to strengthen this environmental economy through a digital service ecosystem. The platform forms the nucleus of an environment-centered business and operating model. It brings together stakeholders, supports environmental projects from initiation to documentation, and increases the visibility of sustainable services. The increased level of information activates additional market incentives for environmental economic services. Cooperation between the skilled trades, chambers, and scientific institutes enables knowledge transfer to the environmental economy.

Decision-makers in the skilled trades sector are confronted with complex market mechanisms. Environmental economy projects often involve several trades, are subject to specific funding conditions, and require coordinated time frames. Existing brokerage platforms focus on lead generation and price comparison and do not offer project-related networking, quality assurance, or tracking of environmental goals.

This is where GreenCraft comes in with a public welfare-oriented platform design that supports the control objectives of the environmental economy in North Rhine-Westphalia. The project strengthens North Rhine-Westphalia as a location for innovation and business and follows the state's innovation strategy for the environmental economy.

Use GreenCraft for structured environmental projects with qualified companies.

• AI-supported matching of temporary networks of skilled trades businesses, customer groups, and funding providers.
• Information service on environmental funding programs and guidelines via AI-based chatbots.
• Support for project initiation, organization, implementation, and AI-supported project management.
• Collection of key figures on the achievement of environmental project targets, provision to funding agencies.
• Quality assurance through the approval of exclusively qualified specialist companies and a neutral arbitration body in the event of conflicts.
• Digital communication, administration, and archiving functions for all project participants.

Learn about GreenCraft services

"From the perspective of Fraunhofer IML, GreenCraft highlights how AI structures and digitizes processes in the skilled trades, enables data-based ecosystems, and strengthens the environmental economy in North Rhine-Westphalia in the long term."
Steffen Bölling, research scientist at Fraunhofer IML, is researching AI solutions for the skilled trades.

GreenCraft acts as a digital platform for craftsmen, using AI to manage environmental projects in North Rhine-Westphalia in a structured manner. The solution connects private households, commercial and industrial companies with craft businesses and funding agencies. The platform forms a digital service ecosystem in which stakeholders form temporary networks and carry out projects together.

At the core of the solution are several functions that work together in a coordinated manner:

• Matching function: AI algorithms form ad hoc networks from several trades, architectural firms, customer groups, and funding agencies according to defined criteria.
• Information function: The platform provides targeted information on environmental projects, funding programs, and guidelines; AI chatbots answer user-specific queries.
• Project function: GreenCraft supports the initiation, organization, and implementation of environmental projects.
• Control and verification function: Key figures document the achievement of environmental goals over specified periods of time and are available to funding agencies.
• Quality assurance function: Participating specialist companies prove their qualifications before registration; a neutral body acts as an arbitration panel in the event of problems.
• Communication function: AI-based dialogue systems and digital channels involve all participants in project communication.
• Administration and archiving function: The platform supports timely document creation, forwards documents to accounting departments, and archives them in a structured manner.
• Networking function: GreenCraft links projects with programmatic environmental management strategies such as regional climate pacts.

KAUZ GmbH develops the linguistic AI modules, LokalesHandwerk.de programs the platform architecture, and Fraunhofer IML and Fraunhofer UMSICHT provide scientific support for processes, business models, and environmental technology. The result is an infrastructure that supports the promotion of sustainability in companies in the environmental economy.

GreenCraft shows how appropriate funding logic and scientific support from Fraunhofer institutes work together to make AI in the skilled trades usable for the environmental economy. Employees from ministries responsible for the environmental economy, energy, or innovative construction can tap into this interaction in a targeted manner for their own area of responsibility.

Your advantages in exchanging ideas with GreenCraft:

• Public grant supports the development of the GreenCraft digital ecosystem and creates structures and instruments for the environmental economy.
• Fraunhofer IML and Fraunhofer UMSICHT validate processes, digital business models, and environmental technology and place them on a knowledge-based foundation.
• The funded project boosts sales and employment in the environmental economy, makes production chains more resilient locally, and builds a new platform economy.
• By linking digitalization, AI, and skilled trades, GreenCraft contributes to the attractiveness of skilled trades and supports the reduction of the shortage of skilled workers.
• The project results are incorporated into further research questions, projects, university teaching, and topic-related networks between crafts and science.

Contact the GreenCraft research collaboration

GreenCraft anchors several areas of expertise in a common framework. The Essen and Mülheim/Oberhausen district craft associations contribute their proximity to guilds, businesses, and regional networks. Fraunhofer IML focuses on digital processes, logistics, and business models, while Fraunhofer UMSICHT contributes expertise in environmental economics, resource efficiency, and energy efficiency. LokalesHandwerk.de operates the digital ecosystem, while KAUZ GmbH develops AI-based language models. The scientific partners at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts ( ) transfer their findings into further research projects and university teaching.

The platform addresses typical environmental projects such as facade insulation, installation of photovoltaic systems, and installation of heat pumps. The fields of application range from future-proof retrofitting of existing buildings to climate adaptation measures and the circular economy. It facilitates access to funding programs, structures the cooperation of several trades, and reduces the effort required for forms and billing.

In this way, GreenCraft strengthens the cross-sector environmental economy, increases the resilience of local value chains, and supports new jobs in the skilled trades. The combination of digitalization and AI with the environmental economy increases the attractiveness of skilled trades for specialists. AI-supported assistance systems help to bridge personnel bottlenecks and accelerate innovation processes. AI applications that have been tested in skilled trades can serve as a blueprint for further industrial applications.