Gay Today: Technology

21st Century Jobs:
Working for the Environment

Compiled by GayToday
Worldwatch Institute

Solar power research and development is one of the technologies spurring employment growth in environmental sciences

Creating an environmentally sustainable economy has already generated an estimated 14 million jobs worldwide, with the promise of millions more in the 21st century, reports a new study by the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington DC-based research organization.

Many new opportunities for job creation are emerging, ranging from recycling and remanufacturing of goods, to greater energy and materials efficiency and the development of renewable sources of energy. Wind power is already generating jobs at a fast clip, including such occupations as wind meteorologists, structural engineers, metal workers, mechanics, and computer operators.

"Jobs are more likely to be at risk where environmental standards are low and where innovation in favor of cleaner technologies is lagging," said Michael Renner, author of Working for the Environment: A Growing Source of Jobs.

"Our research shows that a huge potential to create jobs outside the extractive industries, jobs that do not depend on processing enormous one-way flows of raw materials and turning natural resources into mountains of waste. The challenge to society is to provide a just transition for workers who will lose jobs in industries like fossil fuels and mining."

Some of the most rapid job growth is taking place in the development of wind-generated electricity, solar photovoltaics, and the expansion of recycling and remanufacturing:

* In 1999, there were an estimated 86,000 jobs worldwide in manufacturing and installing wind turbines, a number that has doubled in the last two years. By 2020, wind power may account for 10 percent of all electricity generation and employ some 1.7 million people.

The U.S. solar photovoltaic industry directly employs nearly 20,000 people now. European solar thermal companies employ more than 10,000 people, a number that could grow by at least 70,000 in the next decade, and perhaps to 250,000 with strong governmental support.

The worldwide recycling industry now processes more than 600 million tons of materials annually, has an annual turnover of $160 billion, and employs more than 1.5 million people.

In the United States, remanufacturing is already a $53 billion per-year business and employs some 480,000 people directly-double the number of jobs in the U.S. steel industry.

"Investing in renewable energy, using energy and materials more efficiently, and designing products to be more durable and repairable, will generate more jobs than continuing to invest in extractive industries and fossil fuels," said Renner. Although there will be fewer jobs in resource extraction industries and in manufacturing products when goods do not wear out rapidly, there will be greater job opportunities in repairing, upgrading, refurbishing , and recycling products. Remanufacturing products when their life cycle would otherwise come to an end typically allows 85 percent or more of the value added-the labor, energy, and materials embodied in the product -to be recaptured.

Boosting the efficiency with which resources are used means that businesses and households save a large portion of the hundreds of billions of dollars that would otherwise go into purchasing fuels and materials. Investing the money from these avoided costs in more environmentally benign sectors of the economy will generate more jobs than investing it in resource industries.

The industries that extract and process energy and raw materials are among the most polluting of human activities, but provide only a small, and declining, number of jobs. In the United States, for example, mining, utilities, and four manufacturing industries (primary metals processing, paper, oil refining, and chemicals) together account for 84 percent of all toxic pollutants released. By comparison, their workforces account for less than 3 percent of all private sector jobs.

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World Watch Institute

National Solar Power Research Institute
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Most mining and logging jobs are at risk even in the absence of tougher environmental laws. Increasing mechanization and automation have translated into fewer jobs-in some cases even as output continues to rise. For example, from 1980 to 1999, U.S. coal extraction rose 32 percent, but employment fell 66 percent. In the European Union's chemical industry, production grew by 25 percent from 1990 to 1998, but jobs declined by 14 percent.

Job creation is particularly important in the developing world, where almost all of the growth in population will take place in the coming decades. "The trouble is that human labor appears too expensive, while energy and raw material inputs appear dirt cheap," said Renner. "Businesses have long sought to compete by economizing on their use of labor. To build a sustainable economy, we need to economize on the use of energy and materials instead."

Fiscal policy can be a powerful tool for increasing the productivity of energy and materials. Current tax systems encourage high resource use and discourage job creation. An ecologically-driven reform of tax policy would reduce payroll taxes while simultaneously raising taxes on resources use and pollution. This kind of tax shifting started to become a reality during the 1990s in a number of European countries, including Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

Labor unions and environmentalists could work together to build a stronger political base for these changes in policy. Environmental dangers often translate into health and safety issues at the workplace. Unions are engaged with environmental issues on many fronts, from struggles for improved occupational health and safety, to demands for worker right-to-know clauses, eco-audits, and other environmental provisions in collective bargaining agreements.

"Job loss due to environmental regulations has been extremely limited-less than one-tenth of one percent of all layoffs in the United States," said Renner. "But to build an effective coalition with labor, environmentalists must recognize that those workers who are affected-primarily those in mining, logging, fossil fuels, and smokestack industries-will need assistance to master the move to new skills, technologies, and livelihoods." A just transition policy involves setting up a fund to provide income and benefits for displaced workers seeking a new career, tuition support to pay for vocational and other training programs, career counseling and placement services, aid in relocating to find a new job, and measures to help communities and regions diversify their economic base.

"Strong, independent unions are far more likely to engage in a serious give-and-take on what it takes to create a sustainable workplace than weak, embattled ones," said Renner. "Environmentalists should be supporting labor rights and endorsing measures that give worker representatives a meaningful voice in determining how environmental issues are being dealt with."