The numbers, which don’t even account for the massive boom in renewables development in 2011, show a 25% increase in employment between 2009 and 2010, bringing documented jobs in the renewable energy sector throughout Europe to 1,144,000.

The boost in activity in 2010 represented about €127 billion ($166 Billion) in economic value, a 15% increase over 2009.

Unlike some reports documenting green jobs in the United States, these figures only include renewable fuels, heat and electricity. They do not include jobs in mass transportation, recycling, and green building design.

They show a very healthy diversity in Europe’s renewable energy sector. According to the 2010 figures, the top three sectors for employment were biomass (273,000), solar PV (268,110), and wind (253,145). The next largest were biogas (52,810) and solar thermal (49,845). Behind those sectors were ground source heat pumps, waste-to-energy, small hydro, and geothermal.

The increase in jobs corresponded with an increase in consumption of renewable energy. In 2010, renewables accounted for 12.4% of final energy consumption in Europe — up from 11.5% in 2009 and 10.5% in 2008.

And last year saw even stronger growth, particularly in the renewable electricity sector, where 68% of new capacity in Europe came from wind and solar.

Meanwhile in the U.S., the wind industry faces an expiration of short-term tax credits that threatens up to 37,000 manufacturing, installation and maintenance jobs. Will American politicians work to create one million jobs in renewable energy for people like Nathan Crawford documented in the video below?

Or will we allow other regions create millions more while we look backward?

by Jorge Madrid

Another week, another misguided attack on green jobs.

This week, Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) is going after the Department of Labor’s green jobs training program. The program, which was signed into law by fellow Republican George W. Bush, was funded for the first time under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Issa says the program has produced “abysmal results” and failed to meet its goal of placing 52,762 American workers into green jobs. As of June 2011, the program had placed 8,035 workers into jobs, about 10 percent of the final goal. While this placement ratio is indeed disappointing, it reflects deeper issues within the larger economy, and is also based on some premature and misleading analysis.

His attacks have been nicely debunked by both the Center for American Progress and Green for All, but it is worth revisiting the top reasons why Issa’s attacks miss both the point, and the facts, about green jobs.

1. Green Policy + Green Investment = Green Jobs

Jobs are created when the economy demands goods and services; and investment from the private sector flows to the market when policy “TLC” (transparency, longevity, and certainty) is strong.  The United States has not met either of those requirements when it comes to green jobs, and we largely have our Republican representatives and their rich patrons in the fossil fuel industry to thank for that.

For one, the 111^th Congress failed to put a price on carbon pollution, which would have sent a clear market signal to invest in low-carbon goods and services like solar, wind, and energy efficiency. For another, Republicans and the fossil fuel lobby have vehemently opposed nearly every policy that would signal increased demand to green employers, including a national renewable energy standard, and strengthening clean air standards on coal-fired power plants.

Without some TLC and strong policies in place, clean energy businesses will continue to face major market uncertainty; workers will continue to find it difficult to get good jobs in the green economy; and our country will continue to fall behind in the global clean energy race.

Issa and his Republican colleagues slashed the tires of our automobile and are now complaining that the car is moving too slow.

2. Job Training Does Not Necessarily Mean Job Creation

While job training is critical for growth and competitiveness, it does not create jobs or hedge against a deep economic recession.  If we consider the fact that a record 14 million Americans are unemployed, only half of all recent college graduates are finding work that fits their education, and a labor market where there are five applicants for every available job, it should come as no surprise that nearly all sectors are struggling to match workers with jobs.

The construction and manufacturing trades, which have traditionally been the hub of job training and placement for blue-collar workers, are also reporting dismal unemployment rates.

3. Snapshot Assessments and Shoddy Analysis of Training Programs

The attacks on the green jobs training program are premature. For one, the report Issa cites focuses on only those workers who have been fully trained, not those who are currently going through training programs or who are about to enter into programs funded by the Department of Labor grants.

In addition, these numbers are from June of 2011 — barely a year after most green jobs programs even began training workers.  Because this program was funded for the first time in 2009, it understandably took some time to scale up, develop curriculum, attract and enroll students, and actually train them.

It is also important to remember that nearly 40 percent of those trained through these programs are incumbent workers, meaning they already had jobs but were receiving additional training to become more skilled. Looking at new job placements alone ignores those critical workers.

Also, let’s not forget that 8,000 people did find jobs as a result of the green job training programs. As the Chief Economist of the American Petroleum Institute said in the Washington Post, “Anybody dismissing any kind of a job is silly.”

4. Job Training is Critical for Economic Growth

Broadly speaking, these types of programs are absolutely critical for preparing the American workforce for the range of skilled jobs emerging in the clean energy economy.

Employers want to set up shop in locations with an adequate labor pool of skilled workers. However, we know that the U.S. is lagging behind as 44 percent of American workers do not have any education beyond a high school diploma.  By 2018, only 36 percent of jobs will be open to workers with a high school diploma, while 30 percent of jobs will require some form of postsecondary education and 33 percent of jobs will require at least a bachelor’s degree.

High-tech companies “say the challenge in setting up U.S. plants is finding a technical work force,” explained Martin Schmidt, associate provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in a recent New York Times article.

Companies say they need engineers with more than a high school school diploma, but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree. Americans at that skill level are hard to find. “They’re good jobs, but the country doesn’t have enough to feed the demand,” Mr. Schmidt said.

The Department of Labor’s training program is designed to fill that gap.

5. “It’s Still the [Green] Economy”

America needs jobs and economic growth, and the clean energy sectors of the green economy grew at twice the rate of the broader economy during the peak of the recession. Former President Bill Clinton has laid out a 14-point plan to recover all or most of America’s lost jobs, and six of them are related to the green economy.

The trends in clean energy should have us all paying attention.

Solar power has experienced “ferocious” cost reductions in the past two years and is market competitive with new forms of generation in many parts of the country.

In 2010, America was a $1.9 billion exporter of solar products. During that year, the U.S. solar industry grew 100%. Last year it grew another 100%, making it perhaps the “fastest growing” industry in America. Meanwhile, wind power has seen tremendous market penetration and accounted for 26 percent of all new energy generation in 2010. The technology is expected to provide a third of new U.S. energy production in the next quarter century.

In spite of all these promising trends, Issa has called green jobs “propaganda” and frequently uses his authority as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to call for skewed hearings with titles like “How Obama’s Green-Energy Agenda is Killing Jobs.”  Of course, we know that Issa “was for green jobs before [he] was against them” requesting millions of dollars from the DOE back in 2009 for projects that he said would create a modern “green collar” U.S. workforce.

Most importantly, we must not lose sight of the important clean energy transition underway today. If America is going to compete in this next great global industry, we need our workers to be equipped with the proper skills. Railing against this program makes good political theater, but it does nothing to help us build a new economic future.

Jorge Madrid is a research associate on the energy team at the Center for American Progress.

Hemlock Semiconductor employee Pete Van Sumeren gets green job training at Delta College.

Kate Gordon, the vice president of energy policy at the Center for American Progress, responded to the IG report and its promotion in the Wall Street Journal last October. Her response is just as valid today.

The President promised that if America would take strong actions to move the economy from a volatile, fossil fuel-driven path to a low-carbon energy path – actions including passing an economy-wide cap and trade program, implementing a national renewable energy standard, and investing $15 billion/year over ten years – we could create five million jobs in the clean energy sector. The problem? We haven’t passed any of those critical policies, meaning that carbon still doesn’t have a price, and so low-carbon technologies are competing on a playing field heavily skewed toward “cheap” and dirty resources.

Oh, and by the way, ten years hasn’t passed yet.

The Inspector General report identifies only those workers that have already been fully trained, not those who are currently going through training programs or who are about to enter into programs funded by the DOL grants. The proper question to ask is how much of the funding for this program has been obligated, not how much has already been spent, and then how many workers will be trained through all the programs receiving funds.

It is also important to remember that nearly 40 percent of those trained through these programs were incumbent workers, meaning workers who already had jobs but who were receiving additional training to become more skilled, and therefore more valuable in the labor market. Looking at placements alone ignores those critical workers.

Finally and most important, the report ignores a central fact that must be mentioned whenever we talk about any job training program: We are in a severe economic slowdown and 14 million people are still out of work! If there were jobs to be had, perhaps these trained individuals could be hired to fill them.

Let’s not forget that 8,000 people did find jobs as a result of the green job training programs. That’s 8,000 people who did not have a job before they were trained. As the Chief Economist of the American Petroleum Institute said in the Washington Post, “Anybody dismissing any kind of a job is silly.”

The bottom line is that we haven’t done the work, as a country, to pass the policies and programs that will put us on a focused path toward cleaner electricity and fuels. Until we commit to that path, clean energy businesses will continue to face major market uncertainty; workers will continue to try and fail to find good jobs in the green economy; and our country will continue to fall behind in the global clean energy race.

Sources: Department of Energy, EPA 12/21, Washington Post 12/14,

Forget a top-10 list, we’re jumping straight to a top-20 list for job creation in 2012 – and clean energy, environmental standards and efficiency dominate the list. This list was not compiled by Climate Progress. It was compiled by the editorial team at the Center for American Progress. Many of the ideas are extensions of CAP’s “Meeting the Jobs Challenge” initiative launched in 2009. — Stephen Lacey

20 Ways to Create Jobs

1. Upgrade our nation’s roads, bridges, and other basic infrastructure: 18,000 new jobs for every $1 billion invested.

2. Launch a rehab-to-rent program to turn tens of thousands of government-owned foreclosed homes into affordable rental housing, stabilize neighborhoods, and put construction workers back on the job: 20,000 new jobs a year.

3. Implement new EPA rules governing toxic emissions from power plants: 40,000 new direct jobs.

4. Protect health care reform, which will reduce health insurance premiums, expand coverage, and create jobs: 250,000 to 400,000 new jobs a year for the next decade.

5. Retrofit for energy efficiency just 40 percent of the nation’s residential and commercial building stock and unleash massive demand for domestic labor: more than 625,000 new jobs over a decade.

6. Extend emergency unemployment benefits to long-term unemployed workers hurt by the economic downturn: more than 700,000 jobs.

7. Expand the payroll tax cut for employees and extend it to employers through 2012: more than 1 million jobs.

8. Extend national service programs to provide young people with full-time positions in AmeriCorps, VISTA, YouthBuild, and the youth service and conservation corps: 60,000 new jobs.

9. Pass Home Star, Building Star, and Rural Star legislation to make homes and buildings energy efficient while supporting the hard-hit construction industry: 250,000 new jobs a year.

10. Reduce the nation’s dropout rate by half to add $9.6 billion in economic growth and $713 million in increased tax revenue: 54,000 new jobs.

11. Convert offshore wind power to electricity: 20 direct jobs for each megawatt produced in the United States.

12. Protect funding for community health centers over the next five years to provide health and related services at clinics and in the local business communities: 300,000 new jobs.

13. Protect the National Park Service from budget cuts, corporate interests, and antigovernment rhetoric to support jobs in outdoor recreation across the country: 247,000 jobs.

14. Increase freight rail capital investment: 7,800 direct and indirect jobs for every $1 billion invested.

15. Create a $10 billion trial-employment program with potential to help an estimated 1 million small businesses and startups hire long-term unemployed workers: 2 million new job opportunities.

16. Construct new power transmission lines to reshape our electric transmission grid and create new employment: Generating 20 percent of power with wind can create more than 500,000 jobs.

17. Expand the federal “jobs accelerator” program: Just $200 million in funding could result in 1,800 new businesses employing thousands of workers.

18. Reject a federal proposal to mandate employer use of the E-Verify eligibility verification system and protect 770,000 American jobs.

19. Revamp small-business financial assistance programs to better serve the needs of innovative, high-growth potential startup firms.

20. Create a “common application” for federal programs that foster the growth of small businesses.

Related Post:

• ‘Job-Killing’ EPA Regulations for Chesapeake Bay Will Create 35 Times as Many Jobs as Keystone XL Pipeline

By Maria Gallucci, excerpted from InsideClimate News

The state of Massachusetts is quietly reaping the benefits of cap and trade, the much-maligned process for curbing greenhouse gas emissions that federal lawmakers and many state governments resoundingly rejected in recent years. According to a recent study, cap and trade has created 3,800 jobs and nearly $500 million in economic activity for Massachusetts since 2008.

Massachusetts belongs to theRegional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the first and only mandatory carbon emissions trading scheme in America. A report analyzing data from the first three years of the effort found that of the 10 participating Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states, Massachusetts benefited most economically, because it used the bulk of its money to help fund its aggressive energy efficiency agenda.

“Energy efficiency investments have a much bigger multiplier effect than any other category of spending,” said Paul Hibbard, vice president of the Analysis Group, the Boston-based consulting firm that prepared the report. When homeowners and businesses used RGGI dollars to retrofit and weatherize buildings, they not only ended up saving on energy costs and spending money elsewhere in the economy—they also put contractors and installers to work.

RGGI “is a very successful program … and we look forward to continue achieving those results,” Mark Sylvia, commissioner of Massachusetts’ Department of Energy Resources, told InsideClimate News.

All the RGGI states saw a net economic benefit from the program, the report found, despite increased compliance costs for power plant operators and subsequent electricity rate hikes, largely thanks to energy conservation measures that reduced electric bills. Regionally, $912 million in total auction proceeds spurred $1.6 billion in economic value and created 16,000 jobs, the report found.

The states used their RGGI proceeds in a variety of ways, including patching state budget gaps, paying utility bills for low-income residents, and funding renewable energy projects. The other RGGI members include Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont….

How RGGI Works

Under RGGI, fossil fuel power plants must curb the amount of CO2 they emit each year to a pre-determined level, initially set at 188 million tons of CO2 across the ten-state region.

Operators of fossil fuel plants with at least 25 megawatts in capacity hold “carbon allowances” for every ton of CO2 emissions their plants give off. Plants that exceed their allowances must either reduce their emissions, or buy spare allowances from within the market, with the price determined by how many allowances are up for sale and how many are needed. Private financial firms can also buy and sell carbon allowances in the quarterly auctions run by RGGI Inc., a nonprofit organization that then transfers the proceeds to the states.

In Massachusetts, at least 80 percent of RGGI proceeds must be used for green building and energy-saving programs. In practice, however, the state sent 94 percent of its proceeds from the last 13 auctions—or $134 million—to efficiency efforts, according to Analysis Group.

Hibbard said the study proves that cap-and-trade programs can work and can deliver economic benefits, especially when funding is steered toward energy efficiency.

“It would be impossible to not have that be a key takeaway,” particularly after seeing the economic impact in Massachusetts, he said.

The Massachusetts Experiment

Massachusetts wasn’t always the RGGI proponent it is today. Former Gov. Mitt Romney, now a GOP presidential candidate, championed RGGI in 2005, when it was in its early stages. But he pulled Massachusetts out of RGGI after he failed to get a limit placed on the amount of money power plants would be charged for exceeding their emissions limits.

When Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick took office in 2007, he set out to make energy efficiency the “first fuel” for Massachusetts’ power plants. Rejoining RGGI was among Patrick’s earliest steps as governor, because he saw it as a strong vehicle to help realize that goal, said Sylvia, the state’s energy resources commissioner.

In 2008, Patrick passed a set of ambitious policies to curb energy consumption, driving down electricity costs and slashing greenhouse gas emissions. First among them was the Green Communities Act, which requires gas and electric companies to exhaust all cost-effective energy efficiency measures before building new plants or procuring more power.

By 2020, Massachusetts aims to meet about 30 percent of its energy needs through these energy efficiency measures. Already it has leapfrogged California as the most energy-efficient state, according to an October ranking by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.

Although Massachusetts’ $143 million in total RGGI auction proceeds account for only a fraction of the $2 billion the state plans to invest in energy efficiency programs from 2010 to 2012, Sylvia said RGGI money is still a critical source of funding.

RGGI dollars provided electric utilities with about $30 million in 2010, or 11 percent of total utility program budgets, according to afirst-year report from the state’s Energy Efficiency Advisory Council. They also provided $18 million in grants to nearly 75 municipal efficiency programs.

Aside from funding specific programs, RGGI has helped fuel an economic engine that is creating jobs across the state.

In 2010, some 33,800 people in Massachusetts—20 percent more than in 2003—worked in the broad field of energy efficiency, including providing home energy assessments, creating energy-saving lighting and appliances, and renovating and upgrading green buildings, according to a green jobs count by the Brookings Institution….

– Maria Gallucci.  For the full piece, go to InsideClimate News

Related Post:

• Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative Adds 16,000 Jobs and $1.6 Billion in Value to Northeast Economies, Study Finds

Today over 100 economists from top universities, economic firms, counties, and other groups sent a letter to President Obama urging him to protect more national parks, national monuments, and wilderness areas. The signatories make the case that because the western United States is shifting from a resource extraction-based economy to one founded in tourism and the migration of Americans wanting to live close to wide open spaces, protected places are valuable economically.

As the letter stated, “protected public lands are significant contributors to economic growth.” Ray Rasker, the executive director of Headwaters Economics, who holds a Ph.D from Oregon State University, further explained that:

In the last 40 years, the fastest growth in the West has been in communities that are adjacent to protected public lands. It’s one of the West’s competitive advantages, it’s one of the strengths of the West, and investing in these sorts of public lands—the wilderness areas, the national monuments, the national parks—is a way to protect the competitive advantage of the west. This is what is creating jobs currently, and at a time when we have high unemployment, we need policies that create jobs.

Watch it:

There is a wide variety of jobs created from protecting public lands, many of which are detailed in the Center for American Progress’ recent report, “The Jobs Case for Conservation.” These include outdoor guides, construction workers restoring trails and forests, manufacturers of outdoor goods like skis and hunting equipment, engineers, and park rangers, to name just a few. The Outdoor Industry Association notes that the outdoor recreation industry supports 6.5 million jobs and $730 billion in economic growth every year.

ThinkProgress recently reported that a handful of House Republicans, such as Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), have denied that protecting the West’s special places has positive economic impacts. At a hearing last month, Bishop stated, “Contrary to claims by the administration and others, the designation of national monuments and wilderness are not a boon to local economies, but rather a detriment in most scenarios.”

Additionally, members of the Congressional Western Caucus — a group made up entirely of Republicans — labeled the designation of national monuments and wilderness expansion as “job-killing” policies in a report last year.

Jessica Goad is Manager of Research and Outreach for the Center for American Progress Action Fund. This post was originally published at Think Progress Green.

“A lot of people say California is a failed state,” Brown said. “Well, they’re wrong, and here’s another example of how California is on the move.” Brown also explained how government regulations, so often pilloried by the right, are what created the markets for this job-creating industry:

This is the state of innovation. It’s the place where things happen, from the gold rush, to those oil wells in . Lots of new stuff happens. Yes, we’ve got regulations. Some of these regulations are why car companies and the solar industry is expanding here in California. So you need some rules.

Watch Brown’s speech, recorded by ThinkProgress Green:

Brown praised the former Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, for pushing clean energy. The state’s success doesn’t depend on one party, Brown said, but on “the creativity of the people that come to California.”

Brown cautioned that the state budget is going to be harsh, as he tries to rein in the state’s deficits, but that key investments in the future must be made. “In the midst of austerity, we also need dynamic innovation,” he said. “Even as we tuck in our belts, we’ll expand our imagination.”

There’s a lot of people still out there, and they want to work. And they need jobs. And this is a great start.

Watch it:

“It’s a step to the future,” Herrera concludes, enthused not only about finding a job but also about being part of the greater mission to repower our nation.

Rep. Chris Gibson (R-NY) taking credit for a solar program funded by the stimulus and other Obama programs.

Bucking the trend, at least for a day, Rep. Chris Gibson (R-NY) participated in a publicity event on Monday to celebrate the success of a government-backed solar energy initiative. Gibson spoke at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at the University of Albany to announce a deal to keep 17 solar energy research jobs. The research center hopes to boost an effort to develop “thin-film” solar cells to be built in a 18,000-square-foot manufacturing facility near the campus. Speaking at the event, Gibson applauded the investment, but failed to credit how much of the money was authorized:

“Today’s announcement continues our region’s growth as the next place for 21st Century technology. This facility will preserve existing jobs and ensure that our area remains at the forefront of research into clean energy technologies that are so vital for our future. I applaud CNSE’s efforts to invest in our local communities and look forward to continuing to work with them to expand public-private partnerships here in Tech Valley.”

Earlier this year, the research center received a $5 million grant made possible in part by President Obama’s Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus. During the election last year, Gibson made the stimulus a campaign issue and blasted his Democratic opponent for supporting such a “failed” policy.

The solar jobs are also made possible by the SunShot Initiative, a Department of Energy program started by the Obama administration to spur solar energy technological developments.

A recent ThinkProgress investigation found at least 60 Republicans writing letters to Secretary Steven Chu to request clean energy grants and loans for favored companies.

In an op-ed in the Orange County Register published yesterday, Romney regurgitates GOP talking points on loan guarantees to Solyndra and Fisker Automotive, two stories that have turned leading conservative politicians and media pundits into a pack of scandalmongers — even while many of those politicians supported the same government investments for companies in their own districts.

Romney has officially joined the herd, calling green jobs “illusory.”

First, the good news: President Barack Obama has finally created some “green jobs.” Now for the bad news: They are not in the United States, but in Finland.

The creation of environmentally friendly jobs has been at the top of Barack Obama’s policy agenda since coming into office. With the first of his now many jobs plans, the President set out to fulfill his campaign promise of spending $150 billion to create ten million green jobs. Alas, things didn’t quite work out as planned.

…So far, approximately 100 workers are employed by Fisker in Wilmington, Del., while an additional 500 are actually assembling the cars in Finland.

…Even these few jobs may be illusory: studies of Europe’s green job experiments have found that each new green job destroys several other jobs elsewhere in the economy.

There are numerous gaping holes in Romney’s piece. But here’s the biggest one: There are now 64,000 green jobs in his home state of Massachusetts alone, according to a report released earlier this month by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. Hard to call that “illusory.”

Due to making green jobs a “clear economic development priority, supported by the passage of various legislative and policy initiatives,” on the state and federal level, MassCEC reports that the state’s green jobs workforce grew by 6.7% from July of 2010 to July of 2011 — smashing the average 1% growth of other industries in Massachusetts. Employers surveyed expect to see upwards of 15% growth in the next year alone. From the report:

Not only is it is clear that clean energy is one of our Commonwealth’s marquee industries, but this report affirms that this sector has played a key role in helping the Commonwealth fare the recession better than many other states.

The Massachusetts experience reflects growth in the clean energy sector broadly, which saw 8.3% growth nationally between 2009 and 2010. According to the Brookings Institution, the sector is creating jobs with median wages that are more than $7,700 above jobs in the broader economy.

Apparently, Romney didn’t get the memo.

But that’s not surprising, considering he’s citing a green jobs study from 2009 that has been so thoroughly vetted and debunked, it’s a wonder anyone outside of Fox News refers to it anymore.

And that Fisker Automotive story he refers to? That’s actually a re-hashed story from 2009 too. For anyone not up on the latest “scandal,” ABC claims it has conducted an “investigation” showing that a loan guarantee for plug-in electric vehicle manufacturer Fisker Automotive is creating jobs in Finland, rather than the U.S.

In fact, when Fisker first closed the loan guarantee in 2009, officials publicly explained that the company would be doing final assembly of its first model in Finland while it ramped up a factory in Delaware. According to Fisker, none of the DOE funds have been used to support jobs in Finland — all the money has been used for building new facilities in the U.S. to develop its next EV model. The company only began hiring workers for U.S. operations in June.

Unsurprisingly, Fox News and other outlets are running with the story and inaccurately claiming that the company is using federal money to create jobs in Finland. And now the Romney campaign is spreading the disinformation too.

It appears that Romney’s version of the “facts” are the only illusory item in his op-ed.

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According to McGraw Hill, more than one third of architects, engineers and contractors in the U.S. say they have “green” jobs. That’s 661,000 jobs, a number that is expected to climb to more than 900,000 jobs in the next three years.

That’s in line with the $71 billion American green building market, which represented 25% of all new U.S. construction activity in 2010. The value of that activity is on track to reach $145 billion in 2015.

Say what? I thought that green jobs weren’t real?

I went to the Greenbuild conference in Toronto last week to talk to some of the leading experts in green building for this story.  It became apparent very quickly why this story isn’t getting out. So-called “green” building practices are a natural progression of the conventional building industry, with many of the same companies participating in both sectors. As firms in this industry adopt new technologies and techniques, it’s difficult to determine the precise employment impact.

“These jobs are very hard to track. There are a lot of new jobs being created and there are a lot of jobs transitioning as well. It’s a mix and the numbers aren’t easy to follow,” explained Janet Milkman, executive director of the Delaware Valley Green Building Council, in an interview with Climate Progress.

That is the story of tracking green jobs generally.

Clearly, there’s a lot of value in the sector. More than 40% of the industry representatives surveyed for the McGraw Hill study said that having “green” credentials to meet changes in the market mean better career advancement and new job opportunities. With the conventional construction industry floundering, new construction in the green building space grew by 50% in 2009 and 2010, according to McGraw Hill.

Rather than talk about job creation — a conversation that has turned very political — people in the industry would rather talk about value creation: saving money, raising health standards and increasing worker productivity.

“With zero hesitation, this is a business opportunity,” said Rick Fedrizzi, President and CEO of the U.S. Green Building Council, when asked by Climate Progress how the industry how the industry messages its goals in the face of so much political negativity.

There are more than 10,000 certified green commercial buildings in the U.S. today. According to Fedrizzi, the USGBC certifies 1.5 million square feet of buildings in 129 countries around the world every week — the equivalent of three Empire State Buildings.

“I learned a while ago that we are not going backwards ever again. I don’t care how much money popped up on the scene tomorrow, people will never go back to building inefficient buildings that deprive humans of daylight and superior health opportunities,” Fedrizzi said.

That’s what this is about — value creation. Rather than simply bean counting jobs, we need to focus on the broad-based environmental and economic value of a particular technology or industry.

“The vast majority of our projects are about solving a problem. It’s all about the value proposition — lowering energy bills, helping improve the functionality of a space, and maybe there’s sustainability value for some customers,” explained John Van Dine, Founder and CEO of SAGE Electrochromics, in an interview with Climate Progress.

SAGE produces windows that can be electronically tinted — blocking sunlight while still allowing building occupants to see out the windows. The company recently signed an $80 million partnership with the large building-materials company Saint Gobain and is currently constructing a facility that could produce 4 million square feet of electrochromic glass per year at full capacity.

“We come in and solve specific problems like glare and heat, thus reducing energy. We are a solution. We try not to pay attention to all the other stuff,” said Van Dine, referring to the politics around green jobs and sustainability.

When those solutions are clearly communicated and executed, the jobs fall in line. And so far, even with the green building sector at a relatively early stage, more than 660,000 people are supported by the “green” sector in some way in the U.S. alone.

John Williams, a sustainability expert with HDR, asks the media to question the value those jobs are creating.

“Tell me about the jobs, tell me about the social benefits, the environmental benefits, the economic benefits. Tell me about resiliency benefits, and tell me about how that investment will enhance competition,” explained Williams to Climate Progress.

“The more questions we answer, the better off we’ll all be.”

Related Greenbuild 2011 Posts:

• Communicating Green Jobs: “If You Translate the Value of Those Jobs With The Other Benefits, You’ve Got to Win”
• United Steel Workers: “Of Course” Green Jobs Exist, “We Can See the Benefits”
• Babylon Steps up the PACE of Green Jobs: “For Energy Savings, Carbon Reduction and Job Creation.”

by Auden Schendler

On October 17th, Newsweek will release its attention-getting rankings of the top “green” publicly traded global companies.

Last year, the magazine ranked Dell  #1. Dell is no slouch on operational greening: the company, along with Hewlett Packard, has led the tech industry in lifecycle stewardship, with a willingness to take back and recycle its old hardware, among many other progressive internal waste reduction measures. Dell also leads in the energy efficiency of its products.

But is Dell really the greenest company in the world? It depends on your criteria. The Newsweek analysis looks at operational issues like emissions of nine key greenhouse gases, water use, solid-waste disposal, and emissions that contribute to acid rain and smog. That’s good and important.

But if you read Climate Progress regularly, you know two things: First, that the scale of the climate problem (the response to which is what defines corporate sustainability today) is so large that voluntary corporate action won’t solve it. Second, you know that because of this, how companies operate is vastly less important than how they try to influence policy, policymakers, and public opinion. If the lobbying power of one company — Koch Industries, for example — can more or less single handedly stop climate solutions, then what other companies do as climate activists is clearly critical.

The influence of the Kochs and other wealthy lobbyists and business owners was put in stark relief by Jane Mayer at the New Yorker last August and then again last week, when she exposed Art Pope’s successful purchasing of the North Carolina legislature. The work of Pope and the Kochs (now magnified by the passage of Citizens United) means corporate advocacy and activism (and the broader issue of money in politics) is the battlefield on which climate will be solved or ignored.

And so, it makes sense for Newsweek, and the roughly dozen or so other corporate rankings like the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, to include, and heavily weigh, advocacy or activism in their ranking methodology. I’ve just published a paper, “The Factor Environmental Ratings Miss,” that goes into detail on this topic with Mike Toffel of Harvard Business School, in this month’s Sloan Management Review. (That article is available free, but you need to sign up on the site).  The article notes:

News Corporation’s climate change performance was recently rated AAA by one rating organization — yet Rolling Stone magazine named News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch No. 1 in its list of “politicians or execs blocking progress on global warming.”

Toffel, in other research, has shown that companies will respond to negative rankings, and improve their performance.

Another legendary tech company, Apple, which was admittedly late to the operational greening and product stewardship dance, ranked in at 65th in the Newsweek ratings last year. But Apple arguably did more to move the ball on climate change solutions than any other company last year, when it very publicly dropped out of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because of that organization’s strident criticism of plans to limit greenhouse gases. (The chamber, by the way, also supports the Keystone XL pipeline, which Jim Hansen has called “game over” for climate, if allowed by Obama.)

Where might Apple rank if this bold move were included in the rating criteria? And how might the tide of the climate battle change if increasingly visible corporate rankings appropriately valued activism?

Newsweek should take note. These are the forces that are truly driving sustainability.

— Auden Schendler is vice president of sustainability at Aspen Skiing Company

Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL): "We can't compete with China."

“I’m not going to surrender to other countries,” Obama shot back in today’s press conference, after noting that Stearns, like dozens of other Republicans, are on record supporting the clean-energy loan guarantee program they now attack:

I heard there was a Republican member of Congress who is engaging in oversight on this. And despite the fact that all of them in the past have been supportive of this loan guarantee program, he concluded, “You know what? We can’t compete against China when it comes to solar energy.”

Well, you know what?

I don’t buy that. I’m not going to surrender to other countries the technological leads that can end up determining whether we’re building that in this country. So we’re going to have to keep on pushing hard to make sure the manufacturing is located here, new businesses are located here and new technologies are developed here. And there are going to be times when it doesn’t work out, but I’m not going to cave to the competition when they are heavily subsidizing all these industries.

Watch it:

In fact, the clean energy sector in the United States is one of the few bright spots for the middle class in today’s economy. The U.S. solar industry was a net global exporter by $1.9 billion in 2010. U.S. wind power capacity represents more than 20 percent of the world’s installed wind power. The clean energy sector grew by 8.3 percent between 2003 and 2010, nearly twice as fast as the overall economy, with good-paying jobs for blue- and white-collar workers.

However, Republicans like Stearns are actively trying to cripple the future of clean energy manufacturing, by killing off any rules or programs that reward clean work instead of fossil-fuel pollution.

One of the most vocal supporters of strong clean energy policies is the United Steelworkers, the largest industrial labor union in North America. As a founding member of the BlueGreen Alliance, USW, has been pushing progressive climate-stabilization and renewable energy policies, even while representing one of the most carbon-intensive industrial sectors.

The organization, which makes up more than 700,000 workers in the North American steel industry, has come out strong on various issues — supporting a comprehensive U.S. climate bill, backing a national renewable energy target and calling Canada’s exploitation of tar sands an “embarrassment on climate change.”

Speaking to Climate Progress at the Greenbuild Conference in Toronto, Ken Neumann, national director for USW Canada, calls climate change “our greatest threat” and reiterates the union’s support for green jobs:

“We find that the green economy is very crucial to us…solar and wind, these are all manufacturing jobs. Many of our members are producing the steel in some of these facilities.”

When asked about whether green jobs exist, Neumann replies: “Yes, of course they do….  We see the benefits.”

With numerous solar and wind manufacturing facilities being built in Ontario due to the province’s domestic content requirement, the sector has seen a substantial increase in activity. But here’s the problem: Neumann admits that it’s difficult to track the exact number of jobs created in the sector due to renewable energy.

It’s still early in Ontario’s feed-in tariff program, so no new steel facilities have been constructed to service demand. Existing steel mills are making products to serve the equipment and construction needs of companies setting up shop in the province, but Neumann says it’s tough to pinpoint exactly how many jobs have been saved or created so far.

“Our members are creating products for these facilities. But I think it’s difficult to say exactly what is a green job and what is not. But there’s going to become a point when they are not going to be ‘green’ jobs. We have to keep focused on the environment and on the big picture. That’s what we intend to do because we know they are a natural part of building this industry.”

Yet again, we run into the same problem when counting green jobs. While some of these positions are obvious and trackable, many more are diffuse and disguised.

We know they exist and are seeing explosive growth. That’s why leaders in the steel industry are so interested in them. It’s just not always easy to separate a traditional job from a green job. And that’s why the “debate” over these jobs is so heated.

And as we’ve pointed out again and again on Climate Progress, federal and state programs have created and saved hundreds of thousands of good jobs. In some cases, however, jobs haven’t been created as quickly as hoped — opening the entire concept of clean energy investments to political criticism.

But these criticisms ignore all the other value that clean energy projects bring to communities.

John Williams, an expert on sustainable communities and clean energy with HDR, believes we need to get back to the basics on messaging. Speaking to Climate Progress at the Greenbuild Conference in Toronto, Williams argues that we need to get beyond the “campaign” stage of promoting green jobs, and back into the “transformational” stage of talking about the immense economic, environmental and societal value through a business lens.

Here’s the video interview:

Williams: We really need to be asking a lot of questions, and certainly the jobs question is an important one. How does one project provide greater benefit than another project from a jobs point of view. But I’m for asking even more questions: Tell me about the jobs, tell me about the social benefits, the environmental benefits, the economic benefits. Tell me about resiliency benefits, and tell me about how that investment will enhance competition….  The more questions we answer, the better off we’ll all be.

CP: So if folks can better communicate the economic, social and environmental value rather than talk about specific job numbers necessarily, do you think you neutralize much of the political debate around this sector?

Williams: The reality is, we need jobs now. There’s no doubt about it. So we can’t overlook that conversation. But if you can translate the value of those jobs along with the other benefits, I think you’ve got to win.

Williams has certainly walked the walk. In order to give a better framework for evaluating all these benefits, he created a “Sustainable Return on Investment” model, which has helped leverage billions of dollars in capital from financial institutions for clean energy projects.

This is something I’ve argued for a lot in the past. Obviously, the high-level messaging on green jobs is important. But by talking about clean energy investments from a business perspective — clearly articulating how specific technologies and projects can create different types of value along with job creation — the political “argument” against green jobs becomes moot.

Since the program started in 2008, Chu says it has brought $1.89 in value for every $1.00 invested through savings on energy bills — helping support hundreds of efficiency retrofits and support 50 full-time jobs.

“These are local jobs that can’t be outsourced,” Chu explains in an interview at the Greenbuild Conference in Toronto. “And the value is felt right here, for both the customers and the contractors.”

The town’s program was so successful, one contractor moved over to Babylon from the west coast to set up shop. And in 20 months, his outfit grew from one person to 27 employees:

“If that’s not the most important story of all this, I don’t know what is. We have a contractor that is adding employees, creating jobs, we have homeowners who are saving energy, and we are reducing carbon in our community, serving an extremely important public purpose for all of our constituents. We’ve been doing it, we continue to do it in Babylon…. And to the extent that Congress can validate what we’ve been doing and make this possible in other places, it would be terrific. But we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing because we know it’s the right thing. And it’s been very, very successful for job creation, for energy savings, and for carbon reduction.”

Under PACE programs, municipalities issue bonds to help pay for energy efficiency or renewable energy retrofits. The home or business owner pays the loan back through an increase in property taxes. However, the Babylon program operates a bit differently, with the fee assessed through the city’s solid-waste program. (Very accurately, the city expanded the definition of “waste” to include energy waste.)

Creating 50 jobs might not sound like much. But when you consider that PACE programs create about $10 million in gross economic output and 60 jobs for every $4 million spent in a locality, that adds up across the country. If we performed efficiency retrofits on only 1 percent of the homes around the U.S., hundreds of thousands of jobs could be created — all with no upfront cost to homeowners.

Babylon has been a major success story in the residential PACE sector at a time when other municipalities have struggled in the last year. But those towns and cities haven’t struggled because of poor program design. They’ve struggled because of the stranglehold that the nation’s top mortgage lenders, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have put on PACE.

Last year, these lenders issued new restrictions on mortgages to homeowners participating in PACE programs. Under PACE, if a homeowner defaulted, the municipal loan would get paid back before the mortgage. That riled Fannie and Freddie, which argued that they should get paid back first. So, the Federal Housing Finance Agency instructed them to enforce very strict guidelines on homeowners receiving PACE loans, forcing many communities to halt their programs. That put a virtual freeze on this important economic driver.

But Babylon has pushed on. Chu hopes that the city’s success will inspire other city officials and national political leaders to help re-ignite PACE.

“If we all got up and actually spoke with one voice, they’d have to listen up. These are organizations that contributed to the financial collapse of this country, and now they’re hindering new economic growth,” says Chu.