Creating Green Collar Jobs
What are green collar jobs?
Green-collar jobs are wellpaid, career track jobs that contribute directly to preserving or enhancing environmental quality. Like traditional blue-collar jobs, green-collar jobs range from low-skill, entry-level positions to high-skill, higher-paid jobs, and include opportunities for advancement in both skills and wages.
Green-collar jobs tend to be local because many involve work transforming and upgrading the immediate built and natural environment—work such as retrofitting buildings, installing solar panels, constructing transit lines, and landscaping. Green-collar jobs are in construction, manufacturing, installation, maintenance, agriculture, and many other sectors of the economy.
Spurring the creation of green-collar jobs in your community means more than creating short-term
work on individual green projects. It means building a sustainable economy, where environmental goals go
hand in hand with social and economic goals. It means embracing visionary policies for your community,
mobilizing all of the resources at your disposal to meet those goals, and explicitly working to expand the number of long-term, high-quality green-collar jobs for local residents.
This information was taken from the report, "Green-Collar Jobs in America's Cities: Building Pathways out of Poverty and Careers in the Clean Energy Economy." Click here to see the full report.
Green Collar Jobs in Montana
Green Economic Recovery Program: Impact on Montana
Part of a National Program to Create Good Jobs and Start Building a Low-Carbon Economy
The link above leads to a fact sheet which details the impact on Montana, based on a national report that outlines a green economic recovery program to strengthen the U.S. economy over the next two years and leave it in a better position for sustainable prosperity. This report prepared by the Political Economy Research Insitute at the University of Massachusetts found that:
- Montana’s share of national green economic recovery program: $279 million, based on combining state’s population and gross domestic product
- Montana’s net job creation through green economic recovery program: 6,335 jobs, based on Montana unemployment figures in June 2008.
- Impact on Montana’s labor market: a net increase of 6,335 jobs would reduce
Montana’s unemployment rate to 2.9 percent in two years from 4.1 percent in June 2008.
Links
Apollo Alliance
The Apollo Alliance is a coalition of business, labor, environmental, and community leaders working to catalyze a clean energy revolution in America to reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil, cut the carbon emissions that are destabilizing our climate, and expand opportunities for American businesses and workers.
Green for All
Green For All is a national organization dedicated to building an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. By advocating for local, state and federal commitment to job creation, job training, and entrepreneurial opportunities in the emerging green economy – especially for people from disadvantaged communities – Green For All fights both poverty and pollution at the same time.
Green Collar Blog
Green Collar Blog is a resource to help people seeking jobs that focus on environmental and social responsibility. Green Collar Blog is a service of Green Jobs Network.
Mother Nature Network
Mother Nature Network is everyman's eco-guide offering original programs, articles, blogs, videos, and how-to guides along with breaking news stories. The site offers a “Look Who Has a Green Job” video series from the Natural Resources Defense Council, which features interviews with people that are currently working in a green job. The series helps the public understand green jobs a bit better by providing real world examples of what clean energy jobs are.
Green Jobs Central
Green Jobs Central is a blog that provides an overview of U.S. employment in the coming green economy.
Green Jobs-Job Boards Specializing in Green Jobs
This list provides links to websites that will help viewers find a green technology job. These websites feature job listings for environmentally friendly companies. Green Jobs is a feature on About.com.
Reports
Carbon Free Prosperity 2025: How the Northwest Can Create Green Jobs, Deliver Energy Security, and Thrive in the Global Clean-Tech Marketplace
Climate Solutions and the leading clean-tech research firm Clean Edge have teamed up to release this important and very timely new report. This new study shows that the Pacific Northwest can create up to 63,000 new high-paying jobs in the region by 2025.
The new report lays out a ten point action plan designed to help the Pacific Northwest seize global leadership in clean technology -- creating jobs, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and swiftly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Green Recovery: A Program to Create Good Jobs and Start Building a Low-Carbon Economy
As the nation continues to debate its energy future, a new report prepared by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst shows that the U.S. can create two million jobs by investing in a rapid green economic recovery program, which will strengthen the economy, increase energy independence, and fight global warming.
Green-Collar Jobs in America's Cities
A coalition of non-profit environmental and economic research organizations from across the country released a first-of-its kind guide to cities and states to enhance one critical component of America’s shared prosperity. The new guide, “Green-Collar Jobs in America's Cities,” was made public at the start of the two-day national Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference in Pittsburgh. It makes a strong case that pursuing a four-step strategy – essentially a metropolitan green business and jobs development plan – provides a wealth of environmental, economic, and social benefits.
