When many black people think of jobs that create environmental efficiency, they often think of Buck Rogers and space-age technology. That misconception could potentially keep black workers out of the green-collar industry, which is predicted to be the largest employment wave the country has seen in decades.
“A green job isn’t only just a new job, but it tweaks existing jobs that existing business owners can do if they have the education. A roofer in the community can easily get training to become a solar installer. The demand for solar is going to increase more than the demand to put shingles up,†says Philip O’Neal, a founder of Green DMV, a non-profit that promotes green jobs for low-income communities in Washington D.C., Maryland and Virginia. “A landscaper can easily go from laying sod on the ground to putting green roofs on the rooftops of homes.â€
While the majority of green jobs are held by engineers and consultants, there is also a growing need to build a blue-green workforce so that the local painter, roofer, or landscaper can also ride the green jobs wave.
“Green jobs exist within a broad range of industries, so the education and training necessary to get these jobs is diverse,†says Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, the CEO of Green For All, an organization dedicated to an inclusive green economy.
President Barack Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provides $500 million for green-collar training. It also invests a lot of money to increase the energy efficiency of buildings, which will create a lot of immediate jobs for workers who have skills in energy auditing, says Ellis-Lamkins. According to a 2008 report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors “U.S. Metro Economies: Current and Potential Green Jobs in the U.S. Economy†85% of green jobs were located in metropolitan areas in 2006.
Unlike the dot-com and digital revolutions, many green leaders want African Americans to get in on the ground floor of the green movement. “Most of the time [African Americans] don’t know it is happening and by the time [they] find out about it, [they] do not have access,†says Karen Bass, speaker of the California State Assembly and an advocate of green technologies.
Bass is also afraid that many youth who need employment may get left behind because trade careers are not presented to them as viable options or because as ex-felons they are legislated out of jobs.
Indeed, for Majora Carter, a pioneer in green-collar job training, the realization that blacks had been sourced out of green jobs in her Bronx neighborhood motivated her in 2003 to launch Sustainable South Bronx, a non-profit environmental justice corporation.
Carter, a 2006 MacArthur “genius†Fellow, created an urban green-collar job training and placement program that teaches students eco-skills, such as green-roof installation and maintenance, and how to retrofit buildings to boost their efficiency. Nearly all of the students were on some form of public assistance, and about half had prison records. Now in its fifth year of operation, none of the ex-convicts have returned to prison, more than 80% are employed and 15% have gone on to higher education, according to her Website.
Green literacy is spiking in minority communities. In fact, many of the larger HBCUs including Clark Atlanta have begun offering programs to train students for green careers.
Green DMV’s O’Neal and his business partner Rhon Hayes established environmental awareness days in Washington D.C.’s underserved schools to expose youth to sustainable lifestyles and green jobs.
They also recruit at-risk youth and people with arrest records and teach them how to weatherize and add solar panels to churches in southeast Washington. They hope one of their students will add solar panels to the White House one day.