A New Workforce Development System for a Green Economy

Ed MorrisonPurdue Center for Regional Developmentedmorrison@purdue.edu

Dimensions of a Green Economy Workforce

A green economy focuses on sustainability, resilience and regeneration. Inan industrial economy, our attention is driven toward the business ﬁrm — thecorporation — and isolated individuals — “rational” consumers and investors. Ina green economy, we are drawn to connections: the relationships of ourselves andour organizations to our natural environment.A green economy focuses our attention on open networks and a newconcept of regenerative innovation. It requires us to be aware of local ecosystemsthat are dynamically connected to the global economy. A green economy is alsomultidimensional and more expansive than a narrower industrial age perspective.This new perspective connects our culture and human resources with the naturalresources that sustain us. From the perspective of a green economy, all of theseresources demand responsible stewardship.Green jobs represents work in agricultural, manufacturing, research anddevelopment, and service activities that contribute substantially to preserving,promoting or restoring the natural systems on which we depend. For example, thisdeﬁnition includes jobs that help protect ecosystems and biodiversity; reduceenergy, materials and water consumption; and minimize all forms of waste andpollution.

Moving toward a more sustainable, green economy will shift workforcedevelopment in at least four ways:•New jobs will be created with the development of clean technologies;•Some employment will be shifted from one technology base to another,such as a shift from fossil fuels to renewables;•Some jobs will be eliminated as markets shift away from old designs andtechnology, such as the shift away from materials that cannot easily berecycled;•Some jobs will be transformed, as new skills are added. For example,construction workers will learn new techniques in efficient building designand construction.In the old industrial economy, jobs were easily classified by education level.White-collar, salaried jobs involved office work and higher levels of formaleducation. Blue-collar, wage employment relied on technical education withmultiple entry points after high school.Classifying green jobs is not so simple. Green jobs span a wide array of skilllevels, educational attainment, and occupations. They share a deeper characteristic:an understanding of interconnection, a perspective of interdependent systems, aview of that our economy consists of networks embedded in other networks.Across the world, green jobs represent an important new category of workforce opportunities. They promise quality employment, meaningfulcommunity serving opportunities, decent living wages and other benefits. Thistransition leaves us with a serious challenge: We cannot effectively prepare for thegreen economy with a workforce development system designed in the IndustrialAge.

Call to Action

Developing prosperity in a green economy requires new perspectives, newsystems, and a new approach to workforce development. The dynamics of thegreen economy include the assumption that natural systems, capital, and humanresources are connected. Prosperity within a region depends on how well weconnect these resources to innovation and productivity: the ability to produce morewealth with less impact on our natural systems. We need new regional systems of regenerative innovation. Our success in the green economy will depend onbrainpower and how well we develop and deploy it within these new systems of regenerative innovation.If America wants a strong workforce so that the beneﬁts of green economicdevelopment we will need to design a new model of workforce delivery system.Our current workforce development structures, designed in an industrial age, musttransition into delivery systems that are more resilient, ﬂexible and adaptive.We will need to move from free-standing hierarchical workforceorganizations to open networks in which resources can be quickly aligned, linkedand leveraged. We need to design systems based on open source networks. Onlythese networks will have the resilience we need to respond rapid change. Regionswith workforce systems based on open networks will be more competitive. Theywill spot opportunities faster, they will align their resource faster, and they will bemore agile in equipping their workforce with the skills needed to compete.