Business, industry and education are all influenced by the “green” concept. Although it is one of the hot buttons now, it is not a passing fad we can choose to ignore. Environmental awareness is no longer considered a luxury, it is now demanded in the workplace and we are beginning to cultivate it in our education institutions. Many existing CTE programs have opportunities to incorporate “green” concepts, like sustainability and alternative energy, into the classroom. However, before launching green-focused CTE courses or programs, it is important to obtain a clear understanding of the green industry and the way it is influencing workforce demand. The CTE community in particular must also see from this perspective in order to develop relevant and effective curriculum and programming.  

O*NET, Occupational Network Database, has done significant research on green occupations by delving into the nuances and clarifying similarities and differences to allow for straightforward yet detailed categorization of these green occupations. They began by defining the “green” economy as: economic activity related to reducing the use of fossil fuels, decreasing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, increasing the efficiency of energy usage, recycling materials, and developing and adopting renewable sources of energy. This definition focused their research and led them to discover that “green” influences the world of work in predominantly three different ways, identified as follows. 

Green Increased Demand Occupations: these occupations may have experienced a small change in work context, but the task has not changed. The change is the increase in demand. 

– Example occupations: geological and petroleum technicians, locomotive engineers, architectural drafters, chemists, natural science managers, and agricultural inspectors.

Green Enhances Skills Occupations: the core purpose of these occupations remains the same, but skills and worker requirements have increased and possibly require additional credentials.

– Example occupations: power plant operators, electrical engineers, and heating and AC. 

Green New and Emerging Occupations: these occupations are new or born from existing occupations. They have unique work and worker requirements.

– Example occupations: wind turbine or farm engineers, biofuels plant operators, and solar power plant technicians. 

 

O*NET’s research has led to the development of an online tool to search the green occupations they have identified, which are helpfully categorized according to occupation, sector and what kind of “green” the occupation is. It is easy to use, just head to their homepage and click on the “green occupations” icon and start searching, it is that simple.  

Tags: green jobs

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 18th, 2010 at 9:57 am and is filed under Research. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.