Environmental jobs pay more, employ more workers than fossil fuels
Environmental jobs pay more!
With the debate still raging over the Gillard Government's carbon price legislation, some new research from the US is shining a bright light on the "clean energy future" Australia hopefully has ahead of us.
A new report, just published by the respected Brookings Institution - America's oldest public policy think tank - has found that jobs in US-based environmental industries have now overtaken fossil fuel-based jobs in sheer numbers, and that they also offer median wages that are 13% higher than other industries.
The research found 2.7 million green jobs in 100 US cities in a large diversity of industries*, from organic food and farming jobs, through manufacturing (solar panels, wind turbines etc) through to public transport jobs.
Not only did the report find that jobs in these industries are on average 13% better paid, it also found that "the clean economy offers more [job] opportunities and better pay for low- and middle-skilled workers than the national economy as a whole . . . [since] a disproportionate percentage of jobs in the clean economy are staffed by workers with relatively little formal education in moderately well-paying “green collar” occupations."
For jobs in clean technology specifically, the research showed that median wages were even higher - 20% higher than in other parts of the economy. Median wages for such clean technology jobs were $46,343, compared with $38,616 for all other occupations across the country.
Over the period studied - 2003-2010 - clean-technology jobs in the US also grew faster than the rest of the US economy - by 8.3% per year, compared with 4.2% a year for other occupations.
The report also found that environmental jobs employed more people across the country than fossil fuel industries - 2.7 million employees compared with just 2.4 million in dirty industries like coal and oil.
According to the report, worldwide investment in renewable energy alone amounted to a massive $154 billion - up 650% since 2004. And this investment in renewable energy jobs and infrastructure is projected to triple to $2.2 trillion by 2020.
As Dow Chemical Company CEO Andrew Liveris is quoted in the report:
“A renaissance is within reach. If Americans are the ones who design and build the new [clean economy] technologies it will re-energize commerce in the United States, creating, without a doubt, millions of high-paying jobs.”
We'd truly like to say the same about Australia.
You can download the full report here.
* Industry categories and segments analysed in the report included:
Agricultural and Natural Resources Conservation
- Conservation
- Organic Food and Farming
- Sustainable Forestry Products
Education and Compliance
- Regulation and Compliance
- Training
Energy and Resource Efficiency
- Appliances
- Battery Technologies
- Electric Vehicle Technologies
- Energy-saving Building Materials
- Energy-saving Consumer Products
- Fuel Cells
- Green Architecture and Construction Services
- HVAC and Building Control Systems
- Lighting
- Professional Energy Services
- Public Mass Transit
- Smart Grid
- Water Efficient Products
Greenhouse Gas Reduction, Environmental Management, and Recycling
- Air and Water Purification Technologies
- Carbon Storage and Management
- Green Building Materials
- Green Chemical Products
- Green Consumer Products
- Nuclear Energy
- Pollution Reduction
- Professional Environmental Services
- Recycled-Content Products
- Recycling and Reuse
- Remediation
- Waste Management and Treatment
Renewable Energy
- Biofuels/Biomass
- Geothermal
- Hydropower
- Renewable Energy Services
- Solar Photovoltaic
- Solar Thermal
- Waste-to-Energy
- Wave/Ocean Power
- Wind
