In the search for green jobs, the most important sector for job creation is not clean tech startups or government, but the most visible element of the old economy: buildings.

Buildings offer many opportunities for energy efficiency, renewable energy, and job creation. But it is not the green buildings that are highly touted in the press but the existing building stock that is evident all over the country in tens of millions of commercial and residential structures. Because all new building construction will most likely be green, the building retrofit market is the holy grail of building green.

So why are existing buildings so energy inefficient compared to buildings in Western Europe or Japan. That’s because the United States was blessed with abundant natural resources that made energy costs cheap compared to the rest of the world. So, we built highly inefficient commercial office buildings, apartment buildings, and oversized houses as well as our cars. To put that in a better light, this is an immense opportunity for job creation in the US that can’t be outsourced. For example, New York City, where I live, has 50 green buildings and 950,000 existing buildings (many over 100 years old). Thus, the opportunity to retrofit these existing buildings with green are immense. Technologies don’t even have to be created. They already exist for energy efficient lighting systems, double paned thermal windows, insulation, better hot water heating including solar, more efficient heating and cooling systems plus solar installation on roofs (the so-called Green Roofs).
All of this green work requires both job training for energy auditors, solar installers, building contractors, electricians, plumbers and others that work at energy service companies as well as service contracting to do the work. Today, there are government incentives to weatherize buildings and make them more energy efficient but frankly buildings owners and home owners need to be educated on why they should retrofit their buildings. Besides the obvious savings in long-term energy costs, there are also environmental benefits of better indoor air quality which means less asthmas and allergies. This work is not putting a man on the moon but making a commitment to clean up the environment by reducing your carbon footprint and saving energy. US buildings are estimated to produce about 40% of US greenhouse gases.

This energy efficiency and renewable energy effort targeted to buildings has “Made in America” written all over it. It also will create hundreds of thousands of well paying jobs for decades. It is not quick fix, and it does not have the sex appeal of a clean tech startup. But it does have the benefits of producing a cleaner environment and does lessen our energy dependency.

We need to get to work now and start the action to get these projected outcomes. A cleaner environment requires work, not press releases. To that end, we have begun a series of Green Jobs Summits in the New York metropolitan area beginning on March 12th (www.greenjobssummits.org) but we are also offering courses and e-learning on energy auditing, solar installation, project management, carbon trading and finance through our Energy and Environment Institute of our Global Change Foundation.
Learning for green will become a life long occupation and require heavy lifting. But you know what, we can make it if we try!