Green Jobs

We know from the successful experience of our intermediate labour market initiative Traditional Boundaries, Traditional Skills that training apprenticeships provided by the National Park Authority in the National Park are taken up by people from across the whole of the North East region.

Surprisingly, the National Park also found that nearly three-quarters of the apprentices went on to create their own micro-business. We are using this format to roll-out a farm apprenticeship scheme in early 2010 and we believe that a similar collaborate approach between the National Park Authority (employer and co-ordinator), local businesses (on-the-job training) and learning institutions (technical training and generic skills) will be successful for providing skilled workers in the micro-renewable energy sector.

Until now, there has been much anecdotal evidence indicating that the pattern of employment is indeed changing - and that new jobs are beginning to emerge in favour of greener, cleaner and more sustainable occupations.

According to the United Nations Environment Program, a green job is "work in agricultural, manufacturing, research and development, administrative, and service activities that contribute(s) substantially to preserving or restoring environmental quality. Specifically, but not exclusively, this includes jobs that help to protect ecosystems and biodiversity; reduce energy, materials, and water consumption through high efficiency strategies; de-carbonize the economy; and minimize or altogether avoid generation of all forms of waste and pollution."

The need for regional green jobs is in large part as a result of climate change and the need to meet emission reduction targets under the United Nations climate convention. This has led to changing patterns of investment flows - flows into areas from renewable energy generation up to energy efficiency projects at the household and industrial level.

From a broad conceptual perspective, employment will be affected in at least four ways as the economy is oriented toward greater sustainability:

• In some cases, additional jobs will be created, as in the manufacturing of pollution-control devices added to existing production equipment.
• Some employment will be substituted, as in shifting from fossil fuels to renewables, or from truck manufacturing to green car manufacturing, or from land filling and waste incineration to recycling.
• Certain jobs may be eliminated without direct replacement, as when packaging materials are discouraged or banned and their production is discontinued.
• It would appear that many existing jobs (especially such as plumbers, electricians, metal workers, and construction workers) will simply be transformed and redefined as day-to-day skill sets, work methods, and profiles are greened.

Green jobs need to be decent work, i.e. good jobs which offer adequate wages, safe working conditions, job security, reasonable career prospects, and worker rights. People’s livelihoods and sense of dignity are bound up tightly with their jobs. A job that is exploitative, harmful, fails to pay a living wage, and thus condemns workers to a life of poverty can hardly be hailed as green.

Traditional Boundaries Traditional Skills Intake Map, 2002-2009