Green jobs may well be the key to future prosperity in Greater Cincinnati, says a locally-sponsored study that recommends a Green Jobs Council, among other things, to jump start the region on the path toward growth in the rapidly expanding global green marketplace.
The report, "Pathways and Policies Towards Green Jobs in Cincinnati," was released in October and was sponsored by the Greater Cincinnati Foundation and the Blue Green Alliance.
In addition to a Green Jobs Council, the report also recommends:
- Defining green jobs
- Supporting existing companies in their efforts to transition to green jobs
- Developing a strong funding model to support additional investment
- Adding "green strings" to existing government incentives
- Adding, aligning and enhancing existing policies for green jobs
The project was launched in part due to a 2009 study released by the Pew Charitable Trusts, which listed Ohio as having the fourth most green jobs in the nation. Ohio was noted as having 2,800 green manufacturing related jobs, behind Oregon, Minnesota and California, which was the clear front-runner with over 13,000 green jobs.
The state is projected to lose as much as four percent of its traditional manufacturing jobs in the next four years. The report's goal is to intensify efforts to attract green manufacturing to the state to offset the loses of skilled manufacturing jobs in other areas. It also focuses on how to define more jobs as "green," says Shawn Hesse, an architect with Emersion Design and one of the authors of the study.
"If we keep the definition of green jobs too narrow, we'll never get to where we want to be. We should be focusing on 'greening' our existing jobs," he says.
The study concludes that Cincinnati's workers have the right skills to succeed in green manufacturing jobs and that these jobs can mean that manufacturing can continue to be a vital part of the region's economy. To make this happen, it says, governments, businesses, unions, non-profits and education organizations will have to work together to develop an economic strategy and policies.
Source: Shawn Hesse, Emersion Design
Writer: Val Prevish