(LifeWire) - From hybrid cars to energy-saving office buildings and organic cotton T-shirts, the economy is increasingly tuned in to environmental concerns and opportunities. Among the many potential benefits of the environmental movement is the promise of new "green-collar" jobs.
But the hype about this future workplace shift can be difficult to separate from the reality. What exactly is a green-collar job, where are such jobs to be found, and who's getting them?
The short answer: It depends on who you ask.A report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and Global Insight, a Boston-based economic research firm, concluded that more than 750,000 Americans could be classified as green-collar workers as of 2006. But the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), a research group affiliated with the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, offered a far larger estimate. It found that more than 14 million people hold a job in one of 45 environmentally oriented categories it identified.
The actual number likely lies somewhere in between. And many of these new jobs may turn out to be merely existing jobs that are reclassified as dirty industries gradually move to cleaner technologies.
For example, about 168,000 sheet-metal workers and 386,000 welders work in the United States. The growing market for wind turbines and solar equipment will undoubtedly increase demand -- and wages -- for both of these trades, according to PERI. But some of these workers could end up making newly energy-efficient vehicles for the same companies that once turned out gas guzzlers.
Just what does 'green' mean?
Forecasts of future employment in the environmental field are equally hard to pin down. One of every four U.S. wage earners will be working for the renewable energy or energy-efficiency industries by 2030, the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) predicts. By then, these jobs could generate as much as $4.5 trillion in annual revenue, the society says.
ASES cautions, however, that economic forecasts depend heavily on definitions, and there are no widely accepted definitions of such environmental lingo as "green collar," "alternative energy" and "sustainable technology." As a result, the U.S. Department of Labor does not track and record the growth of green-collar employment, says Gary Steinberg, spokesman for the department's Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"Green-collar jobs are blue-collar jobs in the green space," says Marie Kerpan, founder of Green Careers, a career consulting firm in Mill Valley, California, that specializes in industries that promote environmental sustainability.
She lists energy efficiency, renewable energy, water treatment, alternative transportation, sustainable agriculture, and energy-efficient and environmentally sensitive building and design as job categories with strong potential for growth in the near future. "Those are the biggies," she says.
The U.S. Conference of Mayors-Global Insight report, for its part, identifies white-collar professional careers such as engineering, law, research and consulting as the largest employment sector of the green economy, with more than 418,000 current workers. Other potentially green job categories include renewable energy, equipment manufacturing and sales, construction and systems installation, agriculture and forestry, and government administration.
Although the entire country is poised to benefit from the shift to a more environmentally attuned economy, some places appear to be better positioned than others to reap the rewards. Although Houston remains the oil capital of North America, the city could become an environmental boomtown because of its energy know-how and infrastructure and Texas' potential for wind-energy production, experts say. The Dakotas, Kansas and Montana also have enormous untapped wind-energy potential.
