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Some of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA or “stimulus”) targets energy efficiency and green jobs training.  Wisconsin just announced $2 million in green jobs training.  Oregon: $6 million.  First off, I’m skeptical of these curricula.  Who will be teaching?  What is the curriculum?  At a cost of about $6,000 per graduate, it’s close to one year of in-state tuition and fees at a public university.  Wow.

Who is going to attend these courses?  I would say a significant portion would be laid off construction workers and skilled trades workers.  Once they are trained to weatherize homes, which does require training, no question about it, they will be ready.  But maybe in a year “real” jobs will return, and do you think a construction worker who can make $50k per year will keep weatherizing homes?  I doubt whether home weatherization can compete with that.  But I digress.

The purported goal of these programs is jobs – green jobs.  These jobs will lead us out of the economic funk we’re in.  I disagree.  The green jobs will really begin to flourish once and if the economy ever recovers.

We need a strong economy to spur construction.  We have a design division and within our energy division, we have a sustainability group that provides new construction design assistance and LEED® consulting services.  These would be considered high paying, long term jobs but as the economy is in the tank, these core services have ground to a slow crawl.  These were “green” jobs before green was a color.  Fortunately, our services are sufficiently diversified that we can keep relatively busy backfilling our other service areas.  Other firms aren’t so lucky.  Unemployment among architect, engineering and construction workers is running nearly double the national average.

Furthermore, with the economy in the tank, energy demand is down.  If you don’t believe it, just ask utility employees who are forced to take unpaid furloughs.  With shriveled demand, who needs energy programs?  Sure, in the short term this will have no effect.  If there is a long term, these programs may lose favor with the public, which is and will be squeezing every penny.  I’m sure we have a long grace period per the currently popular “green jobs” movement.

A strong economy will revive construction and manufacturing and this in turn will put pressure on energy supply, prices, and infrastructure; the drivers for demand side management programs and energy efficiency (not to mention the A&E and construction industries).  It will also put money in public and private institutions’ pockets to spend on energy retrofit and energy efficient new construction.  THEN green jobs will really emerge, organically – how about that!

A strong economy will also move institutions from deer in the headlights / survival mentality to a more competitive mindset.  Once this occurs, green will be a key ingredient to the competitive edge and it will lead the way in differentiating product A from product B, retailer 1 versus retailer 2, or A&E firm α from A&E firm β.

Jeff Ihnen

Author Jeff Ihnen

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