Green Jobs

A bio-energy scientist conducts crop research on switchgrass at this U.S. government laboratory

Source: Roy Kaltschmidt/Berkeley Lab, U.S. Department of Energy

In recent decades, global economic growth has been fueled largely by manufacturing industries. Technology advancement in manufacturing has improved production capacity in terms of output and connected the world through efficient supply chain processes. The benefits of global economic growth through an industrial economy are indeed far reaching, providing opportunities for increased quality of life for millions, particularly in developing nations.

The boom of an industrial economy does come at a price. Most manufacturing requires extensive use of fossil fuels to operate efficiently. Research strongly suggests that the use of fossil fuels produces excessive carbon emissions, resulting in significant environmental degradation including climate change. Beyond the effect of growing carbon emissions on the environment, the industrial economy produces excess waste that threatens the Earth's ecosystems. The increased energy usage and excessive waste discharge from the industrial [Page 233]economy has created an urgent need for change across the globe to protect the Earth's natural resources for future generations.

In recent years there has been a movement to create so-called green jobs to address the issues attendant to an industrial economy. The broadest view of green jobs includes those that facilitate any process important to the future of our environment, such as those that conserve energy, reduce natural resource usage, and manage or avoid the generation of waste and pollution. Governmental sources present a similar view, categorizing green jobs as those that provide products and services that use renewable energy resources, reduce pollution, conserve energy and natural resources, and reconstitute waste. Many believe that any job supporting a process focused on sustainability of our natural resources should be considered green.

Despite the various interpretations, there is general agreement that green jobs are those that improve environmental quality and build sustainable enterprises that do not harm the Earth's ecosystems. To date, reference to green jobs includes multiple industries, from manufacturing to agriculture, and includes any focus on improving the environment. Many in government and in the private sector believe these green jobs will launch the next revolution in the global economy.

It is important to note, however, that an inclusive notion of green employment makes measuring the specific impact on the environment a challenge. For example, most would agree that a firm dedicated to installing solar panels is considered to have green jobs. However, some might question the jobs at the solar panel manufacturing plant if the plant itself releases carbon emissions from the use of fossil fuels.

As concern for the environment has grown, so has the interest in measuring the specific impact certain jobs have on the Earth's natural resources. Early environmentalists thought of “end of the pipe” jobs as green, which included only those that focused on cleaning pollution after it had been produced. More recent interpretations view production, distribution, sale, and disposal as a holistic process, attempting to track the full effect on the environment from a systems perspective.

Defining what constitutes a green job, then measuring the impact on the environment of such jobs, continues to be a challenge. Most agree that new industries exclusively dedicated to improving the environment are relatively easy to identify and measure. However, the impact from existing industries that integrate new technologies to reduce their energy consumption or recycle waste output is difficult to quantify. In those instances, “green” is relative to a previously employed process versus a well-defined standard. One approach to defining green jobs is to measure the impact of the industry in terms of its overall impact on the environment.

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