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There are many formalised as well as general definitions of what jobs fit into the global ‘green’ sector. Many are based on the use of the word ‘environment’, meaning ‘environmental services’, such as waste management, the supply of green goods and products like pollution treatment technologies. ‘The Environment’ covers the natural, built and human environment. There are many careers that touch on environmental issues but are not completely within the scope of being environmental. The type of positions and workplaces vary massively, as do the organisations working in the sector. Some of the many definitions are below.

OECD (2010) notes in its paper ‘Green Jobs and Skills’:

For the purposes of this paper, green jobs are defined as jobs that contribute to protecting the environment and reducing the harmful effects human activity has on it (mitigation), or to helping to better cope with current climate change conditions (adaptation).

UNEP (2008) offers a more detailed definition:

Green jobs are defined as work in agricultural, manufacturing, research and development (R&D), administrative, and service activities that contribute substantially to preserving or restoring environmental quality. Specifically, but not exclusively, this includes jobs that help to protect ecosystems and biodiversity; reduce energy, materials, and water consumption through high efficiency strategies; de‐carbonise the economy; and minimise or altogether avoid generation of all forms of waste and pollution.

The Apollo‐Alliance (2008) definition for so called ‘green collar jobs’ was Green‐collar jobs are well‐paid career track jobs that contribute directly to preserving or enhancing environmental quality. Like traditional blue‐collar jobs, green‐collar jobs range from low‐skill, entry‐level positions to high‐skill, higher‐paid jobs, and include opportunities for advancement in both skills and wages.

The US White House Task Force on the Middle Class (2009) noted:

Green jobs involve some tasks associated with improving the environment, including reducing carbon emissions and creating and/or using energy more efficiently; they provide a sustainable family wage, health and retirement benefits, and decent working conditions; and they should be available to diverse workers from across the spectrum of race, gender and ethnicity

(United States Department of Labour 2009)

The above definitions give a generally helpful outline as to what green jobs cover, but there are disputes over some roles. Often, there is a ‘variety of shades’ in terms of whether a job is green or not.

Brian Handwerk highlighted (2012):

…defining exactly what green jobs are, how they can be created, and how they benefit the economy and environment presents quite a challenge.

As green issues become more integrated within company procedures and environmental regulation, there is an argument that trying to pigeonhole green jobs is not helpful. I can understand this argument – we want all jobs to have an element of being ‘green’ – but generally, green jobs are an obvious choice for those who want to actively ‘make a difference’ to the world we live in. There is a fundamental difference between someone who purely wants to just get a job and someone who wants to make a positive change in the world through their career.

In terms of government reporting, it is helpful to know which industry sectors are growing and where the key opportunities are. Often, government funding for green jobs is diverted into industries where the shade of green is questionable. However, Governments often struggle to decide what green jobs are and what should or should not be included.

Scholars at the Heritage Foundation took issue with the notion that government subsidies and spending are helping to create large numbers of new green jobs, according to a report by David Kreutzer (2012). He explained:

The largest green jobs providers in manufacturing are steel mills (43,658 jobs) …Over 50 percent of all steel mill jobs are green. This high fraction of greenness is driven by the industry’s reliance on scrap steel for the majority of its inputs, not by the greenness of the goods produced with the steel. The trend toward greater use of scrap steel is decades‐long and is not the result of any green jobs initiatives.

Kreutzer also questioned the extent of green jobs and Government green subsidies in renewable energy:

The electric power generation industry has 44,152 green jobs…This may seem like a lot, but only 4,700 are in renewable power generation, including 2,200 in wind, 1,100 in biomass, 600 in geothermal, and only 400 in solar. Though these totals do not include jobs in the manufacture or installation of these power sources, they pale to the equivalent green jobs count in nuclear (35,755), which accounts for over 80 percent of all green jobs in electric power generation.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ numbers above were reasonably close to the findings of a similar US study, ‘Sizing the Clean Economy: A National and Regional Green Jobs Assessment’, by the Brookings Institution (2011). However, the report does state:

The clean economy remains an enigma: hard to assess. Not only do ‘green’ or ‘clean’ activities and jobs related to environmental aims pervade all sectors of the U.S. economy; they also remain tricky to define and isolate—and count.

The International Labour Organisation (2016), an agency of the United Nations, has published its own definition of green jobs in its article, ‘What is a green job?’ Their simple definition is

Green jobs are decent jobs that contribute to preserve or restore the environment, be they in traditional sectors such as manufacturing and construction, or in new, emerging green sectors such as renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Green jobs help:

 Improve energy and raw materials efficiency

 Limit greenhouse gas emissions

 Minimise waste and pollution

 Protect and restore ecosystems

 Support adaptation to the effects of climate change

In its Green Jobs Programme outputs, Gloria Acuña Navarro, from the National Learning Institute of Costa Rica noted:

Green jobs can embrace environmental practices and decent work conditions to varying degrees. Enterprises can start with small/‘lighter’ green initiatives and with time move towards more comprehensive/’darker’ green initiatives. Improving the environmental and social qualities of jobs is a continuous process that seeks to achieve sustainable development at national level.

Joanne Martens has developed the ‘Green World of Work’ Principle: