At its Sustainable Communities Conference, February 8-10, 2012, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities released a new policy document, Building Canada's Green Economy: The Municipal Role. The FCM states that municipalities build and operate most of Canada's environmental infrastructure, from water treatment plants to public transit to recycling and waste disposal services. In areas such as land-use planning, transportation, and building standards, municipalities have direct or indirect influence over 44% of Canada's GHG emissions.

Building Canada's Green Economy describes existing programs such as Partners for Climate Protection (PCP) and the Green Municipal Fund (GMF), which together have invested over $145 million in projects that have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 350,000 tonnes. In addition, a $550 million federal endowment to the FCM is reported to have been invested in capital projects which have yielded 32,650 jobs. The report also compares the potential job multiplier effect of municipal jobs vs. the oil and gas extraction industry: it estimates transit and passenger transportation operations would create over 20 jobs per million dollars invested. Extraction activities, the report states, generate roughly 3 jobs per million dollars invested, while support activities for mining, oil and gas extraction generate about 8 jobs per million.

A study by the Canadian Co-operative Association examines co-operatives that are creating and facilitating renewable energy development in Canada. Of the 71 such co-ops in Canada in 2010, 26% are in the biofuel sector, 22% in the wind sector, 3% in solar, 8% in biomass, 3% in hydro, and 28% in "varied". The report describes the organizational structure, stage of development, and geographical distribution, and lists each co-operative by name, address, and web address.

State of Renewable Energies in Europe, a bilingual document in French and English, was released in February and compares the main statistics on the renewable energy market in the 27 European Union countries for the years 2009 and 2010. Official 2010 data will only be available by 2013, but the group responsible, EurObserv'ER, has proven to be remarkably accurate in its past estimates. It describes and quantifies 9 renewable sectors including wind, solar, biomass, geothermal. For each type of energy, and for each country, it provides estimates of direct and indirect job creation: it estimates total renewable energy based employment at 1.11 million people in 2010 - a 25% increase from 2009. The top employer is solid biomass, followed by photovoltaic and wind power. The final chapter focuses on seven EU regions which have particularly high amounts of RES investments in 2010.  

In late February, the Global Partnership for Oceans was launched - a coalition of international organizations such as the UNEP, UNESCO, FAO, and non-governmental organizations such as WWF and Nature Conservancy, to address the challenges to oceans management and governance, including over-fishing, marine degradation and habitat loss. These are the same issues that were raised by the Royal Society of Canada in February in its comprehensive 300-page report, Sustaining Canada's Marine Biodiversity. Ten Canadian marine research scientists examined the state of the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans as a result of overfishing, aquaculture "and all the things we do that drive climate change". The report explains the real and future threats to biodiversity, discusses Canada's international and national legal obligations and policies, and offers "seven recommendations for action that will take Canada from negligence to effectiveness in managing its fisheries and preserving marine biodiversity, for the benefit of Canadians and all the world's people".

Next 10 of San Francisco has published an analysis of California's "core green economy". While employment and business growth varies across the 15 green industry segments measured, there was overall employment growth of 1% in green manufacturing in 2009-2010, despite the recession. For the period 1995 to 2010, job creation in the clean energy/materials manufacturing sector increased by 53% while jobs in the rest of the manufacturing sector decreased by 18%.

The U.S. Department of Labor Women's Bureau, in early February 2012, released Why Green is Your Color: A Woman's Guide to a Sustainable Career. The career guide was written under contract to the Women's Bureau by Public Policy Associates, Inc. and Wider Opportunities for Women. It is designed for workers and educators, career counselors and training providers, and discusses a range of in-demand and emerging jobs, as well as job training opportunities and career development tools.