UN Report on Green Jobs
Executive Summary. Click here for the entire report.
The latest assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the widely-noted Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change have lent new urgency to countering the challenge of global warming-a calamitous development in its own right and a phenomenon that further aggravates existing environmental challenges. There is now a virtual avalanche of reports by international agencies, governments, business, labor unions, environmental groups, and consultancies on the technical and economic implications of climate change as well as the consequences of mitigation and adaptation strategies. Many declaim a future of green jobs-but few present specifics. This is no accident. There are still huge gaps in our knowledge and available data, especially as they pertain to the developing world.
Green Jobs: Towards Decent Work in a Sustainable, Low-Carbon World assembles evidence-quantitative, anecdotal, and conceptual-for currently existing green jobs in key economic
sectors (renewable energy, buildings and construction, transportation, basic industry, agriculture, and forestry) and presents estimates for future green employment. The pace of green job creation is likely to accelerate in the years ahead. A global transition to a low-carbon and sustainable economy can create large numbers of green jobs across many sectors of the economy, and indeed can become an engine of development. Current green job creation is taking place in both the rich countries and in some of the major developing economies.
We define green jobs as work in agricultural, manufacturing, research and development (R&D), administrative, and service activities that contribute 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 highefficiency strategies; de-carbonize the economy; and minimize or altogether avoid generation of all forms of waste and pollution.
From a broad conceptual perspective, employment will be affected in at least four ways as the economy is oriented toward greater sustainability:
- First, in some cases, additional jobs will be created-as in the manufacturing of pollution-control devices added to existing production equipment.
- Second, some employment will be substituted-as in shifting from fossil fuels to renewables, or from truck manufacturing to rail car manufacturing, or from landfilling and waste incineration to recycling.
- Third, certain jobs may be eliminated without direct replacement-as when packaging materials are discouraged or banned and their production is discontinued.
- Fourth, 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: Towards decent work in a sustainable, low-carbon world Green jobs span a wide array of skills, educational backgrounds, and occupational profiles. This is especially true with regard to so-called indirect jobs-those in supplier industries. Even for new industries like wind and solar power, supply chains consist largely of very traditional industries. For instance, large amounts of steel are incorporated into a wind turbine tower.
Technological and systemic choices offer varying degrees of environmental benefit and different types of green employment. Pollution prevention has different implications than pollution control, as does climate mitigation compared with adaptation, efficient buildings vis-à-vis retrofits, or public transit versus fuel-efficient automobiles. These choices suggest that there are “shades of green” in employment: some are more far-reaching and transformational than others.
Greater efficiency in the use of energy, water, and materials is a core objective. The critical question is where to draw the line between efficient and inefficient practices. A low threshold will define a greater number of jobs as green, but may yield an illusion of progress. In light of the need to dramatically reduce humanity’s environmental footprint, the bar needs to be set high: best available technology and best practices internationally will need to be replicated and adopted as much as possible. And, given technological progress and the urgent need for improvement, the dividing line between efficient and inefficient must rise over time. Seen in this context, “green jobs” is a relative and highly dynamic concept.
A successful strategy to green the economy involves environmental and social full-cost pricing of energy and materials inputs, in order to discourage unsustainable patterns of production and consumption. In general, such a strategy is diametrically opposite to one where companies compete on price, not quality; externalize social and environmental costs; and seek out the cheapest inputs of materials and labor. A green economy is an economy that values nature and people and creates decent, well-paying jobs.
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. There are today millions of jobs in sectors that are nominally in support of environmental goals-such as the electronics recycling industry in Asia, or biofuel feedstock plantations in Latin America, for instance-but whose day-to-day reality is characterized by extremely poor practices, exposing workers to hazardous substances or denying them the freedom of association.
As the move toward a low-carbon and more sustainable economy gathers momentum, growing numbers of green jobs will be created. Although winners are likely to far outnumber losers, some workers may be hurt in the economic restructuring toward sustainability. Companies and regions that become leaders in green innovation, design, and technology development are more likely to retain and create new green jobs. But workers and communities dependent on mining, fossil fuels, and smokestack industries-or on companies that are slow to rise to the environmental challenge-will confront a substantial challenge to diversify their economies. Public policy can and should seek to minimize disparities among putative winners and losers that arise in the transition to a green economy, and avoid these distinctions becoming permanent features.
What are the key drivers of green employment? Green innovation helps businesses stay at the cutting edge, retaining existing jobs and creating new ones. While some companies have barely progressed past green sloganeering-or worse, “greenwashing“-a growing number have announced ambitious goals to reduce their carbon footprint or make their operations “carbon neutral.” The global market volume for environmental products and services currently runs to about $1,370 billion (€1,000 billion), according to German-based Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, with a projected $2,740 billion (€2,200 billion) by 2020.
Forward-thinking government policies remain indispensable. They are important for providing funding of green projects; overall goal- and standard-setting beyond the time horizons typical in the business world; providing infrastructure that private enterprises cannot or will not create; and creating and maintaining a level playing field for all actors. Key policies include:
- Subsidies. Phase out subsidies for environmentally harmful industries, and shift a portion or all of those funds to renewable energy, efficiency technologies, clean production methods, and public transit.
- Carbon Markets. Fix the current shortcomings inherent in carbon trading and Kyoto Protocolrelated innovations like the Clean Development Mechanism so that they can become reliable and adequate funding sources for green projects and employment. Tax Reform. Scale up eco-taxes, such as those adopted by a number of European countries, and replicate them as widely as possible. Eco-tax revenues can be used to lighten the tax burden falling on labor while discouraging polluting and carbon-intensive economic activities.
- Targets and Mandates. Ensure that regulatory tools are used to the fullest extent in the drive to develop greener technologies, products, and services-and thus green employment. This includes land-use policies, building codes, energy-efficiency standards (for appliances, vehicles, etc.), and targets for renewable energy production.
- Energy Alternatives. Adopt innovative policies to overcome barriers to renewable energy development, including feed-in laws that secure access to the electrical grid at guaranteed prices.
- Product Takeback. Adopt “extended producer responsibility” laws (requiring companies to take back products at the end of their useful life) for all types of products.
- Eco-Labeling. Adopt eco-labels for all consumer products to ensure that consumers have access to information needed for responsible purchasing decisions (and hence encouraging manufacturers to design and market more eco-friendly products).
- R&D Budgets. Reduce support for nuclear power and fossil fuels and provide greater funding for renewable energy and efficiency technologies.
- International Aid. Reorient the priorities of national and multilateral development assistance agencies as well as export credit agencies away from fossil fuels and large-scale hydropower projects toward greener alternatives.
Modern economies mobilize enormous quantities of fuels, metals, minerals, lumber, and agricultural raw materials. Although some changes have been made in past decades to reduce the world economy’s environmental impact, these gains are insufficient and may simply be overwhelmed by continued economic growth.
In view of the gathering environmental crisis, and especially the specter of climate change, there is an urgent need to make economies far more sustainable and thus to re-examine the prevailing production and consumption model. Concepts such as dematerialization, remanufacturing, “zerowaste” closed-loop systems, durability, and replacing product purchases with efficient services (such as “performance contracting”) have been discussed for some time and tested in some instances, but by and large have yet to be translated into reality.
Economic systems that are able to churn out huge volumes of products but require less and less labor to do so pose the dual challenge of environmental impact and unemployment. In the future, not only do jobs need to be more green, their very essence may need to be redefined. A number of countries and companies have wrestled with proposals to reduce individuals’ work time in order to share available work better among all those who desire work.
