Last year, during Women’s History Month, we published, our list of the top women in sustainability. This week, PINK released their list of the top women in sustainability for 2011. These are women who they see as pioneers who are employing cutting-edge best practices to lead the movement for corporate responsibility and sustainability
Streamlining the building code process for solar installation could help rooftop solar reach price parity with the average price for electric power on the grid. This key price point is also known as grid parity. Permitting costs will add $1 billion to the price structure of solar over the next five years. This article poses the following question: With widely adopted standardization of best practices in solar system construction/installation in place and the 10-20 years of performance certification on actual operating systems in the field, why then is the permitting process stuck in time and why is solar treated as if it were still an experimental niche rarity that needed to prove itself before the building code bureaucrats can give it their thumbs up.
In this uncertain and unsustainable investment market, companies that build “smart answers” and offer consumers “cost less, mean more” solutions are poised to offer investors the best growth of their investment valuation. “Smart companies” will grow sustainable revenues as they succeed in integrating technology, best practices, customer expectations and sound business values. American investors should look for companies that are aligned with these three growing trends: the return of manufacturing to the U.S., creation of local economies, and generation and/or use of smart energy systems.
This is a round-up of on-the-spot interviews with job seekers who attended the job fair at the Greenbuild Conference that is taking place this week. Attendees were asked what strategies were they using to land a green building job.
I see three green job conversations going on right now in the country, which causes confusion for most job seekers. I first must caution to watch out for all of the hype.
Green Dream Jobs and green workforce development consultant Jim Cassio, recently released data that shows the top green job titles posted by employers and in which cities over the past year – during the recession. Despite the fact that there are scores of studies that show the potential for green jobs going forward, many note the dearth of data on current green jobs in the U.S. economy. Green Dream Jobs has collected concrete historical and current data on the job titles employers are actually looking to fill.
With experts predicting a jobless recovery, there is one hopeful statistic emerging that is contradicting that prediction. According to The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA), every state is seeing growth in at least one green industry segment. In most instances, this business growth stems from existing strengths in the state. As part of an effort to help states continue to grow these industries, the NGA Center has created a series of reports analyzing emerging “green” economies in each state in terms of the scope of green business activity reveals areas of comparative advantage, promising areas for workforce development and opportunities for building partnerships within and across green industry segments. It is intended that this information be used to help states analyze their current efforts and form strategies to grow green economies.
Jim Cassio, author of Green Careers: Choosing Work for a Sustainable Future, has published the Green Careers Resource Guide, and he is offering the ebook for free. It began life as one of Jim Cassio’s research bibliographies. By 2007 it had evolved into a handout for the International Career Development Conference, and now it continues to evolve as a living e-book publication with several updates per year.
Renewable Energy Jobs recently announced that it is launching the first Global Renewable Energy Recruitment Channel Survey. Their global survey will explore current and future trends in job seeker behavior and analyze the effectiveness and popularity of various recruitment channels used across the renewable energy industry and around the world. They feel that the results should benefit everyone involved in the industry, particularly both corporate and agency recruiters keen to ensure that they are utilising an effective mix of marketing resources, and projecting the right messages, enabling them to engage with job seekers on the right level. They will present their findings in October 2009.
