| Coming Up | |
Registration is now open for the 2012 Good Jobs, Green Jobs Midwest Regional Conference in Detroit, MI on May 10-11. CSW is proud to be a convener of this conference, which will explore ways that clean technologies can continue to be manufactured in the Midwest and how cleaner, more efficient cars may revitalize the auto industry. Michael DiRamio will be moderating a panel, "Scaling Up Two Industries in the Detroit Region." To register, click here.
CSW is excited to be a participating organization in the fifth Clean Energy Workforce Education Conference, a national event that brings training leaders together and provides the opportunity to hear about curricula development, career pathways, and best practices for energy efficiency and renewable energy training. The 2012 primary conference sponsor is the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. The Interstate Renewable Energy Council is the primary organizer. The conference will be held in Albany, New York, November 13-15, 2012. For more information about the conference, visit www.cewec.org. |
| Recent Publications | |
Employment in Green Goods and Services, released from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Why Green Is Your Color: A Woman's Guide to a Sustainable Career, released by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Greening of Registered Apprenticeship, released by U.S. Department of Labor. |
| Keep In Touch | |
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CSW believes that sustainability is critical to increasing economic opportunity and prosperity. For the last decade, we've been strengthening the connection between our belief - that economic, social, and environmental vitality is the foundation for a thriving future - and our work to help advance business and industry innovation and competitiveness through the development of a more highly skilled workforce. In the areas of economic, workforce, and community development, sustainability is increasingly a lens through which investments in people, companies, and places are being made. And, we continue to see ample ground for promoting competitiveness and job creation through sustainability-based innovation.
We are committed to working with the private- and public-sector to create more sustainable opportunities for companies and workers through a combination of innovative economic and education related policies and practices that help people successfully engage in work and lifelong learning. We've most recently been working with government, business, and community leaders in the Midwest and nationally to develop good jobs and the highly skilled workers to fill them, particularly in the areas of clean energy, advanced manufacturing, infrastructure, and food systems.
We're also working with a number of partners to ensure that the value of triple-bottom-line sustainability permeates all of our projects and initiatives by:
- Helping connect adults, especially in vulnerable populations, to family-sustaining careers;
- Supporting competitiveness and sustainable prosperity for companies by building business partnerships that embrace triple-bottom-line policies and practices; and
- Working with stakeholders to cultivate community-based, sustainable jobs and to build multiple pathways for local residents to those jobs.
Last year we also created a new program area that specifically focuses on building sustainable communities, directed by Michael DiRamio.
In honor of Earth Day, we are taking this opportunity to highlight some of our work towards building a sustainable future for people, firms, and communities.
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| Building Pathways for a Green Workforce | |
Since 2010, CSW has been engaged by the National Governors Association as a partner to provide technical assistance to grantees that received high growth sector grants from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). Across the nation 240 grantees received $500 million for green jobs and $250 million for health care and other growth sectors. An additional $40 million for innovation in green career pathways was later awarded by DOL. Over 30 states received state energy sector partnerships grants, which align state energy and workforce efforts to effectively meet the demand for skilled individuals in areas such as solar, wind, and energy efficiency. In addition, energy training partnership grants and pathways out of poverty grants emphasize access to career pathways in green occupations.
CSW provides customized coaching, peer learning networks, and synthesis of promising practices to grantees across the nation in this project. DOL has established an online clearinghouse and forum, the Green Community of Practice, for people looking to connect with peers and learn from those on the front lines of these projects and connect with useful tools and resources.
CSW's President, Jeannine La Prad, also serves as an advisor to the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) on their administration of the Solar Instructor Training Network (SITN) to help ensure the development of a robust national solar training infrastructure which can meet the employment needs of a rapidly growing domestic solar industry. The Solar Career Lattice is the product of one of the working groups that was convened by the IREC in its capacity as the National Administrator of the U.S. Department of Energy's SITN. Dr. Sarah White, from the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, is chair of the working group. The interactive online career lattice maps three dozen solar occupations in four sectors: component production, system design, sales & marketing, and installation/operations. This visual roadmap includes occupational information, skills and competencies, and education and training pathways. |
| Supporting the New Energy Economy in the Midwest | |
Since 2007, governors in the Midwest have been working together to position their region to be a global leader in the new energy economy through their work with the Midwest Governors Association (MGA).
CSW worked with the MGA to develop a New Energy Economy Jobs Platform, released in 2009. This platform created goals for job creation and retention related to energy efficiency, renewable electricity, bio-based products and transportation, and advanced coal with carbon capture and storage. CSW also worked with the MGA and an investment workgroup to identify a set of unique but interrelated strategies to help drive investment in new energy related commercial technologies, firms, and infrastructure in the Midwest. The advisory group released these recommendations in February of 2011.
As part of the 2011 Chair's Agenda on Advancing the Midwest's New Energy Economy Through Investment, Innovation, and International Trade, the MGA published a series of success stories about companies in the region who are increasing their competitive edge by managing their energy consumption. This series, which focuses on Midwestern leaders from the manufacturing, utility, and government sectors, highlights successful Midwestern practices, polices, and products. As part of this initiative, CSW has been leading the effort to highlight the region's manufacturing supply chain and workforce related to industrial energy efficiency, including the development of two brief reports that complement the release of this working paper. |
| Growing Investments in Advanced Energy Storage | |
CSW is currently working with a partnership of organizations in Southeast Michigan through the Advanced Energy Storage Systems Initiative, to grow jobs by supporting innovations in energy storage. The effort is working to grow the advanced energy storage value chain in the region through the development of technology and talent.
Innovations in energy storage are crucial for creating ecological sustainability and have the potential to create prosperity for communities that embrace them. Advanced battery power is critical to the future of the automotive industry, which is innovating rapidly around vehicle electrification and hybridization. The renewable energy economy also relies heavily on energy storage systems, like batteries and powertrains, to prolong the life of the intermittent energy generated by solar and wind systems. Southeast Michigan has long been the home of research and development for the Big 3 automakers. In response to the rapid growth in the renewable energy sector, Michigan's Workforce Development Agency collaborated with automotive manufacturing employers and educational institutions to establish the Michigan Academy for Green Mobility Alliance (MAGMA), an alliance to skill workers for green mobility jobs. |
| Advancing Sustainability & Career Pathway Efforts in Detroit | |
CSW believes that the frontier for the next wave of industrial innovation lies in the developments related to sustainability - or money-saving, health-promoting, and natural resource conserving technologies. We've been helping many communities to capitalize on these opportunities, and our work in Detroit is a great example of the types of efforts we have been pursuing to build sustainable local communities.
We've done a range of work to support sustainability efforts in Detroit including growing partnerships, supporting investments, and building the capacity of organizations working to grow career pathways into the green economy for Detroit residents. Our past work with the State of Michigan also supported these local sustainability efforts by informing the development of the state of Michigan's report Mapping Green Career Pathways and helping the state develop its energy sector strategy and align it with investments and initiatives in and around Detroit.
Over the last decade in Detroit, the number of total jobs in the region declined by 1.8 percent. Meanwhile, jobs based in sustainability grew by 4.7 percent annually in the region. Already, more than 60,000 people in Southeast Michigan are working to build and provide more sustainable products and services. As a result of state and local efforts, hundreds of people in Detroit have been able to pursue an education, develop new skills, and secure work in a range of clean economy industries. Detroiters now find themselves developing the next generation of electric vehicles, upgrading the energy efficiency of homes and commercial buildings, providing local food for the region, salvaging valuable building materials from homes that need to be taken down, and cleaning up land and beautifying properties.
For the last 4 years, we've been working with the Detroit Regional Workforce Fund (DRWF), a public/private funding collaborative managed by the United Way for Southeast Michigan, to identify opportunities to help Detroit residents find good jobs. A soon-to-be-released report of the DRWF written by CSW's Michael DiRamio and Tammy Coxen, "Working Towards a Sustainable Detroit: Investing in Sustainable Industry and 'Green Collar' Careers for Residents in Detroit," explores the current community-based partnerships in the green economy in Detroit and offers a framework for policy and action to support those efforts.
We're also helping the DRWF to build a Detroit jobs alliance to create good, family sustaining jobs and to help Detroit residents get the skills they'll need to fill those jobs. The alliance relies on the participation and resources of the greater Detroit community, and has partnered with CSW to manage and facilitate the development of the alliance.
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| Growing Jobs Through Sustainability-Driven Innovation | |
We've developed an approach to community-based job creation that focuses on sustainability-driven innovations in a range of industry sectors. Traditional economic development approaches have left voids in the market, leaving many critical community needs unmet. There are a range of opportunities based on building the pillars of the community economy particularly through reducing waste and increasing energy efficiency. Some of these opportunities include constructing or upgrading buildings to be more energy efficient, cleaning up brownfields, developing urban farms and landscapes, installing solar and wind energy systems, and deconstructing, salvaging, and reselling building materials.
Community-based job creation partnerships can embrace these opportunities to employ local workers in addressing these ecological needs while also building a sustainable local economy.
If you are working on something similar to the community-based job creation concept, we'd like to hear from you. Please share your ideas with us on our Facebook page or tweet your ideas to us at @skilledwork_org using the hashtag #CommunityBasedJobs. |
| About CSW | |
Corporation for a Skilled Workforce is a national nonprofit organization that partners with government, business, and community leaders to develop good jobs and the highly skilled workers to fill them. We help communities innovate so that they can compete. We help businesses cultivate talent so that they can grow. We help people learn so that they can find good jobs - or create their own. |
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