This is the second installment of my weekly series of interviews I have conducted with people who have made a career transition to the clean/green sector. Last week focused on my interview with with Glenn Booth, VP of Marketing & Business Development at Cool Energy, Inc. He has made the transition from telecom to solar. This week we are presenting my interview with Laks Sampath, who is a Principal with ElliptlQ Energy Partners, who transitioned from working with dotcoms to solar.
All things being equal, if a potential employer paid for your time away from the office to volunteer for an earth-friendly cause or provided you with free compact fluorescent light bulbs and an energy audit of your home, or even a hybrid car, would you be more inclined to join them? Leading by example, renewable energy firms are developing “green” or environmentally friendly employee benefits that align the core values of a CEO and culture of their organization with the core values of each employee.
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.
Last week, at the National Clean Energy Summit 2.0 in Las Vegas, Energy Secretary Chu called for a revolution, “a second industrial revolution.” The first industrial revolution came with a “carbon dioxide cost” but “in the next industrial revolution, we must develop technologies that will enable us to get the energy the world needs to grow and prosper but “essentially reducing and eliminating the carbon dioxide,” he said. Chu said the United States has the greatest research and development centers in the world in universities, national labs and the private sector. “Once we get this great invention machine geared and going we’d be invincible. But the only trouble is, let’s get it going.”
Retrofitting 50 million buildings in the United States, about 40 percent of the building stock, by 2020 to make them energy efficient would create 625,000 permanent jobs, John Podesta, CEO of the Center for American Progress, told CNBC. “There’s probably a $500 billion investment that’s needed, but the vast majority has to come from the private sector,” Podesta added. “The government has a role to play in orienting policy toward getting the financing right.”
Colleges and universities are responding to a surging interest in green careers by offering more opportunities for degrees in sustainability. “The past few years, society as a whole has become increasingly interested in sustainability,” said Julian Dautremont-Smith of the Association for Sustainability in Higher Education, who was quoted in USA Today. “Higher education has been swept up as well.”
Earlier this week, the Navajo Nation signed into law promising green-jobs legislation that could serve as the first step in a broader transition for the Navajo Nation and other low-income communities in the Southwest. The bill, passed by the Navajo Nation Council in July, creates the Navajo Green Economy Commission that will coordinate a long-term green transition plan for the Navajo Nation and a Green Economy Fund that will support green-business development in the community. These enterprises range from weaver’s cooperatives to small-scale clean energy projects. While a green economy is not a new concept to Navajos, it does stand in stark contrast to our recent past and present.
The creation of a Green Bank will encourage a long overdue integrated and strategic approach to clean-energy innovation, efficiency, and deployment in the United States. In combination with Senate action on clean energy—legislation that provides incentives for the research, development, and deployment of clean-energy technologies, and a market-based pollution-reduction program that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and reinforces a predictable price signal on carbon—the Green Bank will open credit markets, motivate private business to invest again, and create good, clean-energy jobs here at home.
The alternative energy industry — the green business — is about to ramp up its hiring, with the next year likely to show an increase in demand, according to U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. All signs truly point in this direction. In addition to the development of the green energy business over the past several years, the amount of capital flowing into fledgling companies in this space is growing rapidly.
