Decoding the ‘buzz’ around green jobs
(By Alysia Garmulewicz via Arrow Lakes News)
Green jobs have been increasingly described as a silver bullet: a way to raise employment, cure economic recession; and, save the environment. In a recent study through their “Green Jobs Initiative,” the United Nations Environment Program stated, “Green jobs…are a new and powerful force for achieving a more resource efficient and equitable global economy that mirrors all our aspirations for true sustainable development.” Barack Obama has stated, “Green jobs are the jobs of the future.” But what are they, and do they really hold this immense potential for positive change?
Although green jobs have been defined and categorized in many ways, as of yet there exists no single definition that is universally recognized. Definitions vary with the agenda of who is studying them. For example, some studies aim to draw attention to growing worldwide unemployment, and so define green jobs in sectors that can contribute the most job growth. Other studies (most in the US) aim to show ways to ‘stop shipping jobs overseas’ and so focus on sectors that promise a (green) competitive advantage back home. However, while green job definitions vary, they all share at focus on green employment in the technologies and infrastructure of a low-carbon future, with some variation on what technologies should be included.
Green jobs must not only have environmental credentials, but satisfy social goals as well. The International Labour Organization has emphasized that green jobs cannot be considered green unless they are ‘decent.’ This means that they must be good jobs that respect workers rights with decent wages and safe working conditions. The Canadian Labour Congress states that the ‘green-ness’ of jobs should be judged on how it contributes to the well being of the worker and the community.
A second area of importance in understanding green jobs is the difference between direct and indirect jobs. Direct green jobs are those that are created in new green industries such as wind turbine designers or a manager of a new solar power company, both of which include a new specific skill-set. Indirect jobs are standard positions created in support of new green industries. Most studies have found that the overwhelming majority of green jobs are indirect: in effect, they will be the jobs we see today, like accountants, engineers, factory workers, and mechanics. However, their skills will be put to use in an industry or sector that contributes to the well being of the natural environment, as part of a green economy.
So what is a green economy? It is widely recognized that a definition is dependent on technological and social change. For example, what might be considered efficient by today’s standards might not be in the future. The United Nations report notes that, “A green economy is one that does not generate pollution or waste and is hyper-efficient in its use of energy, water, and materials.” But as this is still an elusive goal, measuring jobs that contribute to such an economy would yield very little results. Therefore, green jobs should be defined as those that contribute to the process of creating a green economy instead of those that exist in a utopic green end state.
If green jobs are a dynamic concept, then some jobs in particular industries will have greater potential of induce more green jobs. This is not a new idea. When the car was first introduced, it brought with it a whole host of new employment positions – everything from jobs as traffic regulators (handing out tickets and setting speed limits), to car retailers and dealers, to oil companies and gas station operators, to road construction, traffic light maintenance, etc. etc. One new innovation ‘radiated out’ across the economy, inducing many more jobs.
This leads to one of the most important insights about green jobs: they are not all created equal. Some have the potential to transform a whole sector, economy, and ultimately society as we know it. Energy and transportation are two of the key sectors that are identified with this transformational potential, because of how central they are to our local, national, and global ways of operating. They have the most impact on the Earth, and so creating green jobs in these sectors hold the most potential for change.
Even within these sectors though, different green jobs hold varying levels of potential. For example, should a job created in increasing the efficiency of a coal-fired power plant be seen as just as ‘green’ as a job designing a wind turbine? This question can be resolved by putting various green jobs along a spectrum of relative transformative potential, from ‘light green’ to ‘dark green.’ A light green job would be in environmental regulation of industries – although this sector employs 11 million people worldwide, it remains wedded to a resource and waste-intensive system of supplying material goods and energy. In comparison, a dark green job could be an industrial engineer who is designing the waste of one factory to be the input (or resource) for another (see the Kalundborg Industrial Site in Denmark), thereby eliminating the concept of waste by closing the loop of industrial resource and waste streams. This spectrum can be applied to all sectors including building design, transportation systems, retail, agriculture, and forestry.
If our goal is to transition to an economy that is good for the Earth, identifying green jobs that have more potential to take us there is important. This isn’t to say that ‘light green’ jobs aren’t needed – they are. But we must differentiate between light and dark and realize the dynamic nature creating certain green jobs over others. If we do it right, green jobs could leverage broader social and economic change towards a truly sustainable future. The challenge will be for every community to understand where its job potential lies, and see how not only green – but decent – jobs can be the bedrock of sustainable development efforts.
What is clear is that the time of thinking of jobs and the environment as fundamentally opposed is well and truly in the past. If approached right, a green jobs economy that benefits our entire community is within our grasp. But it will take dedication, an embrace of new ideas, and a commitment to our collective future.