A year and a half ago, you might not have been familiar with
the term, but by now you’ve heard it hundreds of times—even if you’re not
entirely sure what all it encompasses. “Green jobs,” or “green-collar jobs,” are
hot.
The promise of green jobs helped generate support for the economic
stimulus package. The idea is to combine the creation of much-needed new
employment with the desperate need to revitalize our infrastructure and develop renewable energy sources.
Putting the infrastructure for
renewable energy in place is possibly the most visible category; many people
picture workers installing solar panels as the quintessential green job. Making
buildings more energy efficient, and all the retrofit work that goes along with
that, is part of it. Research into new fuels and new delivery methods is, too,
and these areas are where much of the focus has been. But the term encompasses
more than just energy-related jobs, including many in the water-quality and
erosion control fields—jobs that, like the energy- and infrastructure-related
ones, can’t be easily outsourced and that will likely continue to be in
ever-greater demand.
The EPA has put together a list of
resources,
including a catalog of training
opportunities for green jobs and a video in which Van Jones explains the concept of the green
roof while giving us a tour of one under construction. Jones, who wrote the book
The Green Collar Economy and helped bring the term and the concept into
the national arena, is the special advisor for green jobs for the White House
Council on Environmental Quality.
Although the work of erosion
control, stormwater management, and environmental restoration have been around
far longer than the terms that are now often used to describe them, it’s to our
advantage to show how our ongoing work fits into the new framework. Have you
found yourself describing or presenting your work differently—same work,
different terms—when, for example, builders are looking for LEED (Leadership in
Energy and Environmental Design) credits for a new project, or when a new
development seeks to take advantage of EPA’s Green Infrastructure initiative, or
when people talk about green jobs?
On the Web site for
Stormwater magazine, editorial advisory board member Laureen Boles wrote about her experiences with the Greater
Philadelphia Green Economy Task Force, and her attendance at the “Good Jobs –
Green Jobs” conference in Washington, DC, in February.