Green Collar Jobs: Why Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency are Economic Powerhouses

While policymakers consider how to tackle climate change and energy policy, the study to be released shows that renewable energy and energy efficiency can offer the economic opportunity of the century – but only if we take advantage of this huge opportunity. Today, these industries generate 8.5 million jobs and nearly $1 trillion in annual revenue in the United States, and they contain some of the fastest growing sectors in the economy. Among the study’s findings are: if the country fails to invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency, it runs the risk of losing ground to global competitors. If policy and regulatory barriers to the sustained development of the industry are not addressed now, other countries like Germany, Denmark, and China will take the lead and reap the economic benefits. However, this new report also illustrates the tremendous opportunity for the United States to harvest these green collar jobs and how these industries, with the correct support, are poised to be economic powerhouses for the 21st century.

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) and the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) invite you to a briefing at which a groundbreaking new report will be released entitled Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency: Economic Drivers for the 21st Century. This report from ASES is the nation’s first comprehensive study of the tremendous economic impact of these industries. It aims to answer the questions: how big are the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries and how large are they forecasted to grow? How many jobs and what types of jobs do they create? What are the economic development implications? The briefing will address these questions, as well as provide a special case study, and explore the important policy implications of this powerful research.

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) and the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) held a briefing at which a groundbreaking new report was released entitled Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency: Economic Drivers for the 21st Century. This report from ASES was the nation’s first comprehensive study of the tremendous economic impact of these industries. It aimed to answer the questions: how big are the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries and how large are they forecasted to grow? How many jobs and what types of jobs do they create? What are the economic development implications? The briefing addressed these questions, as well as provided a special case study, and explored the important policy implications of this powerful research.

While policymakers consider how to tackle climate change and energy policy, the released study showed that renewable energy and energy efficiency can offer the economic opportunity of the century – but only if we take advantage of this huge opportunity. Today, these industries generate 8.5 million jobs and nearly $1 trillion in annual revenue in the United States, and they contain some of the fastest growing sectors in the economy. Among the study’s findings are: if the country fails to invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency, it runs the risk of losing ground to global competitors. If policy and regulatory barriers to the sustained development of the industry are not addressed now, other countries like Germany, Denmark, and China will take the lead and reap the economic benefits. However, this new report also illustrates the tremendous opportunity for the United States to harvest these green collar jobs and how these industries, with the correct support, are poised to be economic powerhouses for the 21st century.