Green Jobs in an age of rising unemployment

Two new reports and a fascinating summit highlighted the potential for green jobs in an age of austerity and rising unemployment.

Whilst stringent spending cuts were being unveiled in Westminster, down the road in Holborn representatives from industry, trade unions, social enterprises and think tanks met at ippr’s Green Jobs Summit to discuss the prospects for job creation as the UK embraces a low-carbon transition.

In the first of two new soon-to-be-published papers, ippr’s study ‘Green and Decent Jobs’ discusses how far the creation of new green jobs could counteract unemployment in the UK. With employment growth in the financial and construction sectors stalled, and public sector jobs threatened, “growth sectors like low-carbon and environmental goods and services have the potential to drive the new job creation needed”.

Estimates of the scale of this potential vary widely, but are nonetheless inspiring: the previous Government’s Low Carbon Industrial Strategy, for instance, estimates that the UK could have up to 1.28 million green jobs by 2015; RenewableUK foresee 60,000 jobs in the wind sector by 2020; and the recent Offshore Valuation report outlines the opportunity for 145,000 jobs in the offshore renewables sector by 2050.

These numbers will not materialise on their own, of course. Ippr, reviewing a range of sample schemes from the US and UK, make the case for stimulating green job creation through local, bottom-up activism and social enterprise. In the States, where the green job agenda has been championed by groups such as the Apollo Alliance and Green For All (whose founder Van Jones was one-time Green Jobs Tsar to President Obama), local groups have emerged in places such as Los Angeles and Oakland offering practical training in energy installation and efficiency measures to those seeking employment. In the UK, ippr found practical efforts to be more fragile, but their paper nevertheless profiles some encouraging examples: Birmingham Green New Deal, for instance, which provides employment for local people in energy efficiency retrofits, or Peckham Power, which has organised skill-shares on installing insulation and solar panels for South London residents.

A second new report from the Aldersgate Group turns to the workforce skills sets needed for the UK to capitalise on new green markets. These include certain specialised skills in carbon accounting, life-cycle analysis and specific renewable energy engineering capabilities; but also more generic skills such as the need for better education in the STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering and maths. Thus developing the skills for a successful green economy “represents a ‘no regrets’ policy which will enhance UK competitiveness whatever the pace of industrial transformation.”

Speakers at today’s Green Jobs Summit highlighted other challenges – and opportunities – for creating green jobs. David Still, Managing Director of Clipper Windpower Europe – who have recently announced their intention to build a wind turbine factory in Northeast England – spoke of the danger of losing green jobs overseas if the UK fails to capitalise on first-mover advantage in the offshore wind industry. Development of a UK supply chain would in itself cut costs to the country through insulation against exchange rate fluctuations and reduced transportation charges, he said. Whilst the situation has improved since last July’s Vestas dispute (where several hundred jobs were lost when wind turbine maker Vestas closed down its factory on the Isle of White), Still stated he was disappointed by the Coalition Government’s current level of engagement with green industry, citing the cancelled loan to Sheffield Forgemasters, whom they had considered for a contract.

Left Foot Forward also spoke to groups involved in green job creation schemes who criticised the Government’s curtailing of the Future Jobs Fund, which has seen £290 million of cuts since May. Sources spoke of their disappointment that new monies had been halted after only six months of the Fund operating, despite its role in providing paid employment for unemployed young people – including in new green jobs. Left Foot Forward has reported that the loss of the Fund will mean a loss of 94,000 jobs for 18-24 year olds facing long-term unemployment. As the Aldersgate Group’s report states bluntly: “The most significant driver for low carbon skills is a robust government industrial policy that encourages investment”.

David Cameron has declared his intention for his to be “the greenest government ever”. Such a government worth its salt must put green jobs at the heart of its policies and pursue an active green industrial strategy; not only to meet our emissions and renewable energy targets, but also to ward off the prospect of a jobless recovery, secure first-mover advantage in new renewable industries, and train a fresh generation of young people in the skills of the future.