GE Real Estate Launches Green Initiative
GE Real Estate Will Assess Environmental Performance of Properties in Which it InvestsCommitment Includes New Partnership With the Clinton Climate Initiative
November 07, 2007: 12:17 PM EST
CHICAGO, Nov. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- GE Real Estate today announced a new initiative to green its real estate investment business, a global business that generates more than $30 billion in annual transaction volume across 28 countries. Sustainability will be embedded into its existing investment processes, from origination of investments to underwriting, due diligence and asset management in an effort to improve the environmental performance of assets, to positively impact the health of tenants, and to improve the value of the properties.
The announcement was made at the Greenbuild conference in Chicago, the world's largest gathering dedicated to green building. GE Real Estate also unveiled its new partnership with the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI). The partnership will allow GE Real Estate to access the elements of the CCI program as appropriate to improve the environmental performance of its properties. CCI, launched in August 2006, is working with major cities and members of the business community to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in large urban areas. GE Real Estate's partnership with CCI was announced by President Bill Clinton, the keynote speaker at the Greenbuild conference.
Ron Pressman, President & CEO of GE Real Estate, said his businesses' sheer size necessitates action. "We recognize that the building sector is one of the largest contributors to GHG emissions, with commercial buildings producing between 30-40 percent of these emissions annually," Pressman said. "We believe GE Real Estate is in a position to reduce those numbers. As one of the world's largest owners of commercial properties with thousands of buildings in our portfolio, and more added each year, we believe we can make a significant, positive impact on the environment and benefit our business."
Pressman added: "We are also pleased to be partnering with the Clinton Climate Initiative. Like CCI, we see an opportunity that has been for the most part overlooked. The green building movement has thus far focused primarily on new development. We see a significant opportunity to improve the environmental performance of existing properties."
President Bill Clinton said he was pleased that GE Real Estate has made this commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. "The tools we need to dramatically reduce our carbon emissions exist today," he said. "When it comes to climate change, the hurdles we face aren't technological, they're organizational, which is why my foundation is partnering with cities, businesses, nonprofits and schools alike to design systems and programs that reduce energy consumption. I'm grateful to them all for working to show the world that the solution to the climate crisis isn't far off in the future -- it's in the buildings we inhabit, our civic infrastructure and the way we organize our lives."
GE Real Estate's overall commitment will include the following:
-- Evaluation of acquired properties for financially attractive
environmental improvement retrofits using energy and environmental
audits;
-- Energy and environmental metrics on assets will be tracked, just as
financial performance is tracked;
-- USGBC's LEED rating system and international equivalents will be used
as a framework to benchmark GE Real Estate's portfolio;
-- Learnings and best practices will be shared with GE Real Estate's
customers and business partners to help extend the impact to the
owners of the properties the company finances -- a $30 billion lending
portfolio supporting some 11,000 buildings globally;
-- Engaging partners, customers and vendors across its global network of
more than 5,000 relationships on green issues.
The program will build on GE Real Estate's existing work in the green movement. Inspired by Ecomagination, GE's corporate initiative designed to help customers improve their environmental and operating performance, GE Real Estate has undertaken a number of green initiatives, including projects in development or re-development in the U.S., U.K, France, Spain and Australia. In the US, GE Real Estate also owns Arden Realty, which has an active energy efficiency upgrade program and currently possesses one of the largest portfolios of EPA Energy Star buildings in a single commercial portfolio. In 2006, GE Real Estate lowered electric energy consumption across 10MM SF in 99 buildings by approximately 72 million kilowatt hours. More than 35 thousand metric tons of CO2 emissions were eliminated, which represented a 30% reduction and the equivalent of taking more than 6,500 cars off the road annually or powering more than 6,000 homes every year.
About GE Real Estate
GE Real Estate (http://www.gerealestate.com) is one of the world's premier commercial real estate companies with more than US$72 billion in assets and a presence in 31 countries throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia/New Zealand. Backed by GE's AAA rating, GE Real Estate offers a comprehensive range of capital and investment solutions including equity capital for acquisition or development, as well as fixed and floating rate mortgages for new acquisitions or re-capitalizations of commercial real estate. With a 28% compound annual growth rate since 1993, GE Real Estate is one of the world's fastest growing and most profitable real estate enterprises. This extraordinary record of success grows out of a reputation for collaboration and partnership; a depth of knowledge and experience and a history of building relationships, finding opportunities and opening doors for more than 5,000 owners, builders, borrowers and brokers worldwide.
GE Commercial Finance (http://www.gecommercialfinance.com) offers businesses around the globe an extensive array of financial products and services. With more than US$259 billion in assets and expertise in the middle-market, GE Commercial Finance provides loans, operating leases, financing programs and innovative structured capital to help customers grow. Headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut, GE Commercial Finance is a wholly owned subsidiary of the General Electric Company , a diversified services, technology and manufacturing company with operations worldwide.
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/AQW10807112007-1.htm
Sunday, November 11, 2007
3-day expo seeks to build 'green' awareness
McCormick Place hosts conference and draws acclaim
By Mary Owen Tribune staff reporter
November 8, 2007
A recent interior design graduate, Madhoolica Dear was at McCormick Plaza on Wednesday learning about recycled carpets and cork flooring.Dear, whose future clients will want to be environmentally conscious, is one of 20,000 people registered to attend the three-day Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, which started Wednesday. The conference features more than 850 exhibitors who provide products and services for building "green.""I want to see the new products and stay ahead of the curve," said Dear of Westmont. "Some of the new technology is very interesting. It's like science fiction."
The sixth annual conference kicked off with an announcement by former President Bill Clinton and Mayor Richard Daley about three joint projects between the city and the Clinton Foundation to retrofit buildings and make them more energy-efficient. The buildings will include the Merchandise Mart, the Sears Tower and privately owned, multi-tenant housing.
"Chicago has always led by example when it comes to protecting the environment," Daley said. "The Clinton Climate Initiative will play a major role in helping us reach our goal of making Chicago the most environmentally friendly city in the country."
Clinton, who spoke to a crowd of more than 7,000 people, noted that 75 percent of carbon emissions come from urban areas, and most of that from buildings. "I'm not going to pretend this is going to be easy," he said. "We can do this. But to do this, we have to prove it's good economics."
Before the speech, Clinton and Daley praised the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the owner and operator of McCormick Place, for receiving special recognition by the U.S. Green Building Council, a nonprofit group that sets national standards for environmentally friendly structures.
The council, which organized the conference, rates buildings on environmental performance based on several categories, including location, water efficiency, materials, energy use and indoor-air quality. McPier was cited for McCormick Place's West Building, which opened in August. The council said the annex was the largest new building in the country to receive the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Certification.
Exhibitors, which included small and large businesses selling everything from paint to bathroom supplies, said their products would help buildings win LEED certification. Paul DeJuliis, co-owner of Pennsylvania-based Expanko, showed off small squares of cork flooring that he said lasts as long as wooden floors, but don't require an entire tree to be cut down. The flooring is made of discarded bark that was already been holed out for wine corks. "It's 100 percent post-industrial waste," he said. "We just strip the bark off the tree, and the tree can be saved." He said the popularity of cork flooring has started to grow in the last five years and that trade expos are the best way to educate consumers about the benefits. "We're still a small, an almost minuscule, part of the market," DeJuliis said. "It's an awareness factor."
Bill Stacy approached the expo in terms of General Motors Corporation's more than 6,000 dealerships. Stacy, GM's director of strategic operations for dealer networks, said he wants to help dealerships be more environmentally conscious. "If we can help provide a guide for them to improve their energy efficiency, it will be an advantage to the environment. It just makes good business sense," said Stacy, who was looking at an exhibit featuring dual-flushing toilets, waterless urinals and low-volume water appliances.
The conference also features dozens of guest speakers talking about environmental trends in the building industry. Attendees come from more than 40 countries, spokeswoman Taryn Holowka said. This year's conference theme is "Transforming our community," which encourages people to think environmentally beyond a single building, she said. "It's not just thinking about the infrastructure," Holowka said. "We want people to think about the community, walkability and smart development, not just about more development, and combating urban sprawl."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/northwest/chi-green_08nov08,1,1673237.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
McCormick Place hosts conference and draws acclaim
By Mary Owen Tribune staff reporter
November 8, 2007
A recent interior design graduate, Madhoolica Dear was at McCormick Plaza on Wednesday learning about recycled carpets and cork flooring.Dear, whose future clients will want to be environmentally conscious, is one of 20,000 people registered to attend the three-day Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, which started Wednesday. The conference features more than 850 exhibitors who provide products and services for building "green.""I want to see the new products and stay ahead of the curve," said Dear of Westmont. "Some of the new technology is very interesting. It's like science fiction."
The sixth annual conference kicked off with an announcement by former President Bill Clinton and Mayor Richard Daley about three joint projects between the city and the Clinton Foundation to retrofit buildings and make them more energy-efficient. The buildings will include the Merchandise Mart, the Sears Tower and privately owned, multi-tenant housing.
"Chicago has always led by example when it comes to protecting the environment," Daley said. "The Clinton Climate Initiative will play a major role in helping us reach our goal of making Chicago the most environmentally friendly city in the country."
Clinton, who spoke to a crowd of more than 7,000 people, noted that 75 percent of carbon emissions come from urban areas, and most of that from buildings. "I'm not going to pretend this is going to be easy," he said. "We can do this. But to do this, we have to prove it's good economics."
Before the speech, Clinton and Daley praised the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the owner and operator of McCormick Place, for receiving special recognition by the U.S. Green Building Council, a nonprofit group that sets national standards for environmentally friendly structures.
The council, which organized the conference, rates buildings on environmental performance based on several categories, including location, water efficiency, materials, energy use and indoor-air quality. McPier was cited for McCormick Place's West Building, which opened in August. The council said the annex was the largest new building in the country to receive the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Certification.
Exhibitors, which included small and large businesses selling everything from paint to bathroom supplies, said their products would help buildings win LEED certification. Paul DeJuliis, co-owner of Pennsylvania-based Expanko, showed off small squares of cork flooring that he said lasts as long as wooden floors, but don't require an entire tree to be cut down. The flooring is made of discarded bark that was already been holed out for wine corks. "It's 100 percent post-industrial waste," he said. "We just strip the bark off the tree, and the tree can be saved." He said the popularity of cork flooring has started to grow in the last five years and that trade expos are the best way to educate consumers about the benefits. "We're still a small, an almost minuscule, part of the market," DeJuliis said. "It's an awareness factor."
Bill Stacy approached the expo in terms of General Motors Corporation's more than 6,000 dealerships. Stacy, GM's director of strategic operations for dealer networks, said he wants to help dealerships be more environmentally conscious. "If we can help provide a guide for them to improve their energy efficiency, it will be an advantage to the environment. It just makes good business sense," said Stacy, who was looking at an exhibit featuring dual-flushing toilets, waterless urinals and low-volume water appliances.
The conference also features dozens of guest speakers talking about environmental trends in the building industry. Attendees come from more than 40 countries, spokeswoman Taryn Holowka said. This year's conference theme is "Transforming our community," which encourages people to think environmentally beyond a single building, she said. "It's not just thinking about the infrastructure," Holowka said. "We want people to think about the community, walkability and smart development, not just about more development, and combating urban sprawl."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/northwest/chi-green_08nov08,1,1673237.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
Can Green Jobs Save the American Middle Class?
By Brita Belli
E Magazine
November 9, 2007
The American middle class -- of which some 80 percent of Americans claim to be a part -- is getting anxious. While there is no carved-in-stone edict about what it means to be middle class, it's the term that Americans hang their dreams on.
It suggests earning enough to get by without struggling; being able to afford health care, college costs and the occasional trip to Disney World. The middle-class ideal is tied to earning power, and it's there that confidence is eroding. Over the last five years, while most workers' incomes have increased slowly or not at all, costs have reached record levels. Housing costs are up 23 percent, college costs up 44 percent and health insurance costs up 71 percent.
And while the traditional economic outlook is bleak, the green economy is taking shape, bringing with it the promise of well-paying manufacturing jobs; of management and sales opportunities with huge growth potential and lots of niche positions for enterprising students and job seekers looking for alternative careers. On the upper tiers of the economic ladder, many CEOs and CFOs are already jumping into green jobs, and online green job directories are heavy with listings for those with established business experience.
What remains to be seen is if the career ladders appearing in every sector, from green building to organic farming, solar installation and sustainable marketing, are available to all or to a select few. With the momentum behind environmental issues, Congress, spurred by advocacy organizations such as the Apollo Alliance and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, is responding with legislation that could ensure a place for America's disadvantaged and disenfranchised in the new green economy. For that to happen, the House version of the new energy legislation -- spearheaded by Hilda Solis (D-CA) and John Tierney (D-MA) -- has to make it through Congress and past President George W. Bush's threatened veto.
The Green Jobs Act, which passed the House as part of the Energy Bill last August with a vote of 241 to 172, contains specific language about using the green economy as a "pathway out of poverty." Of the $125 million that would be set aside for job training in renewable energy, energy-efficient vehicles and green building, $25 million of that would be earmarked specifically for those most difficult to hire: at-risk youths, former inmates and welfare recipients. The Energy Savings Act of 2007 sponsored by Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and Hilary Clinton (D-NY) in the Senate allows for $100 million in training for "green-collar jobs," but is not geared specifically toward low-income Americans.
That, says Van Jones, president of the Ella Baker Center, is a critical difference. "There's this whole invisible infrastructure trying to get people who need jobs connected with work," says Jones. "There are vocational training centers, return-from-prison work centers, community colleges. But none of that infrastructure is pointed at the green economy. There are a lot of 'certificate factories' pointed at the pollution-based economy, and lots of people going to night school for jobs that aren't there any more."
The Green Jobs Act is a way of "repurposing our job training," says Jones. He testified before Congress in favor of the bill -- a national version of the Green Jobs Corps his organization established in Oakland, California -- and says the shortage of skilled workers throughout the renewable energy sector is already leading eco-entrepreneurs to hire their college buddies. But there's a larger issue at stake. Unless the green economy is designed to include America's urban youth, they are bound to be overlooked, shuffled back into the same low-wage, go-nowhere retail and fast food jobs with little opportunity for improvement.
"The work of saving the polar bears and poor kids is the same work," says Jones. "If we give the jobs to the people who most need them, we solve two problems."
Many say that $100 to $125 million is miniscule money for such a major economic transition. But the government's initial investment is only meant to be a launch pad, says Kevin Doyle, president of green consulting and training company Green Economy. "The federal government serves best as an innovative leader," he says. "Money from the private sector should be at least five times that much."
Companies taking the risk of implementing new, sustainable technologies won't be eager to bear the cost of training unskilled workers. And that incentive is needed, especially in the educational system, to create a workforce that's ready for the new economy. Until sustainable practices move from testing phase to the norm, as they have in green building, companies need a reason to make the switch. "All economic activity has to be financed," says Doyle. "There are no jobs without money." At the same time, he notes, "We are reaching the tipping point where cost incentives no longer have to come from some strange amalgam of tax incentives. Green is tipping into the mainstream."
Green on Top
The green economy has already opened doors for those in the upper echelon of the business world, the managers, directors, CEOs and CFOs.
"CEOs and senior-level people across a broad spectrum are entering the environmental field in droves," says Rona Fried, founder and president of SustainableBusiness.com which includes a "Green Dream Jobs" online directory. "They're saying 'I'm the CEO of an IT company and I want to put my skills to work for the environment. How do I make that transition?'"
As corporations build environmental strategy into their policy, partnering with nonprofits and responding more quickly to rising public concern for environmental issues, they need strong communicators. "Many companies have environmental managers that are now being upgraded in terms of status," says Dan Esty, director of the Center for Business and Environment at Yale University, and co-author of Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value and Build Competitive Advantage. "To be a successful environmental manager, you need good analytic skills, to understand the environment in a business context -- as a core business strategy."
That's the advice Esty gives his Yale students: if they want to improve the environment, they should find ways to help companies tackle the issues that are important to them -- be it safe drinking water, less urban pollution or protecting the rainforest.
And the growing partnerships between corporations and environmental activist groups have created jobs on both sides of the aisle. Greenpeace and Coca-Cola are now collaborating on hydrofluorocarbon (HFC)- and chlorofluorocarbon (CFC)-free refrigeration equipment. Other high-profile partnerships include Chiquita and the Rainforest Alliance, which vastly improved that company's labor and environmental practices in Latin America; and McDonald's with (among others) Environmental Defense which led to the fast-food chain eliminating those wasteful Styrofoam containers. "There are many more jobs today focused at managing the business-environmental interface," says Esty.
The 300 largest corporations are in the initial stages of crafting a new social frontier, writes author Bruce Piasecki in World Inc. "Enlightened self-interest is what fuels the global equity culture, from the search for fuel cells and biofuels to new ways to package and new ways to power our economy, transportation and computing infrastructure," writes Piasecki, president and founder of consulting firm the American Hazard Control Group. "Business first seeks to sustain and further itself, but this revolution has the side benefit of being good for us all."
While green jobs are often touted as a way to create a solid American workforce, it's the installation and maintenance jobs in solar and wind that can't be outsourced. "The technology, where a big part of the upper money is...it's not at all clear the U.S. will win that game," says Doyle. "Right now there are a lot of technology companies in Spain, Japan and Switzerland."
Turning Blue Collars Green
But those in-country manufacturing jobs are not to be taken lightly. They represent a huge possibility for a new "green-collar" economy to restore a rapidly disintegrating American middle class. The 10 Midwestern states, ideally suited for wind energy development, could see nearly 37,000 new jobs by 2020, according to the Environmental Law and Policy Center, if the nation's renewable energy portfolio were set to 22 percent. According to a University of California at Berkeley study in 2004 (and updated in 2006), "Putting Renewables to Work: How Many Jobs Can the Clean Energy Industry Generate?" the renewable industry consistently produced more jobs per megawatt of electricity generated in construction, manufacturing, installation, operations and management and fuel processing than the fossil fuel industries. With a 20 percent national renewable energy standard that included 55 percent wind energy, that would equal 188,018 new jobs by 2020.
Kate Gordon, program director for the Apollo Alliance, a nonprofit working for American energy independence, says, "There's been a wholesale loss of manufacturing jobs, which are union-protected, highly skilled jobs. But with wind turbines, solar panels, energy-efficient retrofits -- there's a whole world of green jobs. It's pretty exciting if you can harness it."
Both recent college graduates and professionals looking to redirect their careers need to find ways to plug into this new green economy. As those pathways from conventional to green are still being laid, that's not always easy. But Doyle, who offers consulting and training for the new green economy, says there are two key strategies. One is to look at what skills are needed by all industries to solve environmental problems. All need information management and financing.
"So much starts with gathering huge amounts of data," Doyle says. This includes jobs in information technology, geography and statistics. And whether a nonprofit, a government agency or a business is looking to purchase open space, or evaluating smart growth versus sprawl, people are always needed to find funds. This opens up jobs like sector analysts, green accountants, government finance officers and foundation managers, among others.
The second strategy for green job seekers is to "pick a niche without any sense of ideological blinders," he says. Someone wanting to "fix" climate change would investigate the major sources of carbon emissions -- power plants, automobiles, gas flares -- and focus on finding solutions within these polluting industries.
People on the forefront of this rising green economy see enormous green growth potential within once-suspect corporate entities, from Wal-Mart to Starbucks. "At one point, five to 10 years ago, it was unusual to have an employee involved in corporate social responsibility," says Ted Ning, conference director of LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) and executive editor of the LOHAS Journal. "Now corporate social responsibility is a whole department for large corporations like Office Depot or Trader Joe's." Looking at the big picture, from corporate scandals to Hurricane Katrina to rising gas prices to the conservative ideology of the current administration, Ning says it's "a perfect storm -- people are fed up with what's typically given to them."
Of course, as savvy marketers have realized, the conscious consumer behind many of the fastest-growing green businesses, from eco-travel to organic food to hybrid cars and Fair Trade coffee, are as seduced by the comfort and social status of these items as by their reduced carbon footprint. "People don't have to sacrifice their lifestyle anymore," says Ning. "They don't have to wear burlap or eat sand."
Brita Belli is managing editor of E Magazine.
http://www.alternet.org/story/67138/
By Brita Belli
E Magazine
November 9, 2007
The American middle class -- of which some 80 percent of Americans claim to be a part -- is getting anxious. While there is no carved-in-stone edict about what it means to be middle class, it's the term that Americans hang their dreams on.
It suggests earning enough to get by without struggling; being able to afford health care, college costs and the occasional trip to Disney World. The middle-class ideal is tied to earning power, and it's there that confidence is eroding. Over the last five years, while most workers' incomes have increased slowly or not at all, costs have reached record levels. Housing costs are up 23 percent, college costs up 44 percent and health insurance costs up 71 percent.
And while the traditional economic outlook is bleak, the green economy is taking shape, bringing with it the promise of well-paying manufacturing jobs; of management and sales opportunities with huge growth potential and lots of niche positions for enterprising students and job seekers looking for alternative careers. On the upper tiers of the economic ladder, many CEOs and CFOs are already jumping into green jobs, and online green job directories are heavy with listings for those with established business experience.
What remains to be seen is if the career ladders appearing in every sector, from green building to organic farming, solar installation and sustainable marketing, are available to all or to a select few. With the momentum behind environmental issues, Congress, spurred by advocacy organizations such as the Apollo Alliance and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, is responding with legislation that could ensure a place for America's disadvantaged and disenfranchised in the new green economy. For that to happen, the House version of the new energy legislation -- spearheaded by Hilda Solis (D-CA) and John Tierney (D-MA) -- has to make it through Congress and past President George W. Bush's threatened veto.
The Green Jobs Act, which passed the House as part of the Energy Bill last August with a vote of 241 to 172, contains specific language about using the green economy as a "pathway out of poverty." Of the $125 million that would be set aside for job training in renewable energy, energy-efficient vehicles and green building, $25 million of that would be earmarked specifically for those most difficult to hire: at-risk youths, former inmates and welfare recipients. The Energy Savings Act of 2007 sponsored by Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and Hilary Clinton (D-NY) in the Senate allows for $100 million in training for "green-collar jobs," but is not geared specifically toward low-income Americans.
That, says Van Jones, president of the Ella Baker Center, is a critical difference. "There's this whole invisible infrastructure trying to get people who need jobs connected with work," says Jones. "There are vocational training centers, return-from-prison work centers, community colleges. But none of that infrastructure is pointed at the green economy. There are a lot of 'certificate factories' pointed at the pollution-based economy, and lots of people going to night school for jobs that aren't there any more."
The Green Jobs Act is a way of "repurposing our job training," says Jones. He testified before Congress in favor of the bill -- a national version of the Green Jobs Corps his organization established in Oakland, California -- and says the shortage of skilled workers throughout the renewable energy sector is already leading eco-entrepreneurs to hire their college buddies. But there's a larger issue at stake. Unless the green economy is designed to include America's urban youth, they are bound to be overlooked, shuffled back into the same low-wage, go-nowhere retail and fast food jobs with little opportunity for improvement.
"The work of saving the polar bears and poor kids is the same work," says Jones. "If we give the jobs to the people who most need them, we solve two problems."
Many say that $100 to $125 million is miniscule money for such a major economic transition. But the government's initial investment is only meant to be a launch pad, says Kevin Doyle, president of green consulting and training company Green Economy. "The federal government serves best as an innovative leader," he says. "Money from the private sector should be at least five times that much."
Companies taking the risk of implementing new, sustainable technologies won't be eager to bear the cost of training unskilled workers. And that incentive is needed, especially in the educational system, to create a workforce that's ready for the new economy. Until sustainable practices move from testing phase to the norm, as they have in green building, companies need a reason to make the switch. "All economic activity has to be financed," says Doyle. "There are no jobs without money." At the same time, he notes, "We are reaching the tipping point where cost incentives no longer have to come from some strange amalgam of tax incentives. Green is tipping into the mainstream."
Green on Top
The green economy has already opened doors for those in the upper echelon of the business world, the managers, directors, CEOs and CFOs.
"CEOs and senior-level people across a broad spectrum are entering the environmental field in droves," says Rona Fried, founder and president of SustainableBusiness.com which includes a "Green Dream Jobs" online directory. "They're saying 'I'm the CEO of an IT company and I want to put my skills to work for the environment. How do I make that transition?'"
As corporations build environmental strategy into their policy, partnering with nonprofits and responding more quickly to rising public concern for environmental issues, they need strong communicators. "Many companies have environmental managers that are now being upgraded in terms of status," says Dan Esty, director of the Center for Business and Environment at Yale University, and co-author of Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value and Build Competitive Advantage. "To be a successful environmental manager, you need good analytic skills, to understand the environment in a business context -- as a core business strategy."
That's the advice Esty gives his Yale students: if they want to improve the environment, they should find ways to help companies tackle the issues that are important to them -- be it safe drinking water, less urban pollution or protecting the rainforest.
And the growing partnerships between corporations and environmental activist groups have created jobs on both sides of the aisle. Greenpeace and Coca-Cola are now collaborating on hydrofluorocarbon (HFC)- and chlorofluorocarbon (CFC)-free refrigeration equipment. Other high-profile partnerships include Chiquita and the Rainforest Alliance, which vastly improved that company's labor and environmental practices in Latin America; and McDonald's with (among others) Environmental Defense which led to the fast-food chain eliminating those wasteful Styrofoam containers. "There are many more jobs today focused at managing the business-environmental interface," says Esty.
The 300 largest corporations are in the initial stages of crafting a new social frontier, writes author Bruce Piasecki in World Inc. "Enlightened self-interest is what fuels the global equity culture, from the search for fuel cells and biofuels to new ways to package and new ways to power our economy, transportation and computing infrastructure," writes Piasecki, president and founder of consulting firm the American Hazard Control Group. "Business first seeks to sustain and further itself, but this revolution has the side benefit of being good for us all."
While green jobs are often touted as a way to create a solid American workforce, it's the installation and maintenance jobs in solar and wind that can't be outsourced. "The technology, where a big part of the upper money is...it's not at all clear the U.S. will win that game," says Doyle. "Right now there are a lot of technology companies in Spain, Japan and Switzerland."
Turning Blue Collars Green
But those in-country manufacturing jobs are not to be taken lightly. They represent a huge possibility for a new "green-collar" economy to restore a rapidly disintegrating American middle class. The 10 Midwestern states, ideally suited for wind energy development, could see nearly 37,000 new jobs by 2020, according to the Environmental Law and Policy Center, if the nation's renewable energy portfolio were set to 22 percent. According to a University of California at Berkeley study in 2004 (and updated in 2006), "Putting Renewables to Work: How Many Jobs Can the Clean Energy Industry Generate?" the renewable industry consistently produced more jobs per megawatt of electricity generated in construction, manufacturing, installation, operations and management and fuel processing than the fossil fuel industries. With a 20 percent national renewable energy standard that included 55 percent wind energy, that would equal 188,018 new jobs by 2020.
Kate Gordon, program director for the Apollo Alliance, a nonprofit working for American energy independence, says, "There's been a wholesale loss of manufacturing jobs, which are union-protected, highly skilled jobs. But with wind turbines, solar panels, energy-efficient retrofits -- there's a whole world of green jobs. It's pretty exciting if you can harness it."
Both recent college graduates and professionals looking to redirect their careers need to find ways to plug into this new green economy. As those pathways from conventional to green are still being laid, that's not always easy. But Doyle, who offers consulting and training for the new green economy, says there are two key strategies. One is to look at what skills are needed by all industries to solve environmental problems. All need information management and financing.
"So much starts with gathering huge amounts of data," Doyle says. This includes jobs in information technology, geography and statistics. And whether a nonprofit, a government agency or a business is looking to purchase open space, or evaluating smart growth versus sprawl, people are always needed to find funds. This opens up jobs like sector analysts, green accountants, government finance officers and foundation managers, among others.
The second strategy for green job seekers is to "pick a niche without any sense of ideological blinders," he says. Someone wanting to "fix" climate change would investigate the major sources of carbon emissions -- power plants, automobiles, gas flares -- and focus on finding solutions within these polluting industries.
People on the forefront of this rising green economy see enormous green growth potential within once-suspect corporate entities, from Wal-Mart to Starbucks. "At one point, five to 10 years ago, it was unusual to have an employee involved in corporate social responsibility," says Ted Ning, conference director of LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) and executive editor of the LOHAS Journal. "Now corporate social responsibility is a whole department for large corporations like Office Depot or Trader Joe's." Looking at the big picture, from corporate scandals to Hurricane Katrina to rising gas prices to the conservative ideology of the current administration, Ning says it's "a perfect storm -- people are fed up with what's typically given to them."
Of course, as savvy marketers have realized, the conscious consumer behind many of the fastest-growing green businesses, from eco-travel to organic food to hybrid cars and Fair Trade coffee, are as seduced by the comfort and social status of these items as by their reduced carbon footprint. "People don't have to sacrifice their lifestyle anymore," says Ning. "They don't have to wear burlap or eat sand."
Brita Belli is managing editor of E Magazine.
http://www.alternet.org/story/67138/
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