The green businesses that provide workers with green collar jobs are large, medium and small. They include for-profit and non-profit businesses, social enterprises, public sector entities, worker-owned cooperatives, and worker collectives.
They represent different sectors, such as alternative energy, materials reuse/recycling, water, sustainable food systems, green building, and sustainable transportation. What unites green collar jobs across these diverse categories is that they are all manual labor jobs that directly improve environmental quality.
Twenty-two different sectors of the U.S. economy currently provide workers with green collar jobs. These sectors include:
1. Bicycle repair and bike delivery services
2. Car and truck mechanic jobs, production jobs, and gas-station jobs related to bio-diesel, vegetable oil and other alternative fuels
3. Energy retrofits to increase energy efficiency and conservation
4. Food production using organic and sustainably grown agricultural products
5. Furniture making from environmentally certified and recycled wood
6. Green building
7. Green waste composting on a large scale
8. Hauling and reuse of construction and demolition materials and debris (C&D)
9. Hazardous materials clean up
10. Green (sustainable) landscaping
11. Manufacturing jobs related to large scale production of a wide range of appropriate technologies (i.e. solar panels, bike cargo systems, green waste bins, etc.)
12. Materials reuse/producing products made from recycled, non-toxic materials
13. Non-toxic household cleaning in residential and commercial buildings
14. Parks and open space maintenance and expansion
15. Printing with non-toxic inks and dyes and recycled papers
16. Public transit jobs related to driving
17. Recycling
18. Solar installation and maintenance
19. Tree cutting and pruning
20. Peri-urban and urban agriculture
21. Whole home performance
22. Water retrofits to increase water efficiency and conservation
Source: (Pinderhughes, 2006) |
