By Lindsay Ignatowski
An excerpt from WMG's Spring 2010 Watershed Moment Newsletter.
"Green-collar job" is a term that came into popular circulation during the 2008 presidential campaign, when Barack Obama pledged to spend $150 billion over ten years to create 5 million green jobs.
A 2009 study by Pew Charitable Trusts found that although overall employment in the U.S. from 1998 to 2007 only grew 3.7 percent, what it calls the "clean en-ergy economy" grew 9.1 percent during the same period. Though concrete sta-tistics about green jobs are hard to find, owing to their nebulous definition, this will soon change; the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will create definitions for and start tracking data on green jobs starting this year.
Green jobs are commonly defined as professions that install energy efficiency features, such as weatherizing homes or installing solar panels.
But is this common definition accurate—or is it a very narrow interpretation of green jobs?
While we can't all spend our careers weatherizing homes and installing solar panels, can we all use our respective skills to benefit the environment through "green jobs"? Well, that depends on how we define this new job sector.
I spend the vast majority of my work time in an office, writing articles, networking, and recording data — yet I have a green job because my outreach work helps promote WMG, an environmental non-profit organization. One of our other employees is an engi-neer who puts her knowledge to work teaching sani-tation education and designing simple water sys-tems in impoverished countries. A friend has a green job as a clerk at a bicycle shop, promoting sustain-able transportation. A teacher may have a green job because he educates his students about conservation; an organic farmer contributes by growing her produce without pesticides and by providing a source of local produce.
In fact, it may not be fair to call "green jobs" a new sector at all, but simply one that is just now being recognized.
Lisa Shipek, WMG‘s Executive Director defines green jobs as, ― professions that understand and respect humankind's integral relationship with their environment and promote sustainable resource management, conservation, low-impact technologies, and the protection of environmental services.
As humankind moves toward sustainable societies, the inextricable link between our livelihoods and our environment will become more apparent, and inter-est in green jobs will continue to increase. If we look beyond a narrow definition of what a green job is, it's possible we can all put our abilities and knowledge to use to benefit the environment and our community; we can all make our jobs a green job.