Green Building Jobs

According to the US Green Building Council (USGBC), "Buildings in the United States are responsible for 39% of CO2 emissions, 40% of energy consumption, 13% water consumption and 15% of GDP per year, making green building a source of significant economic and environmental opportunity. Greater building efficiency can meet 85% of future U.S. demand for energy, and a national commitment to green building has the potential to generate 2.5 million American jobs."

The USGBC has created "LEED", or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. LEED is redefining the way we think about the places where we live, work and learn. As an internationally recognized mark of excellence, LEED provides building owners and operators with a framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions.

There are numerous providers of LEED training and certification, so job seekers can quickly obtain the certification they need to get their dream job.

Other trade and non-profit associations operate in the green building area:

• Build it Green is a non-profit membership organization whose mission is to promote healthy, energy- and resource-efficient building practices in California..
• The Building Performance institute. BPI is a national standards development organization for residential energy efficiency and weatherization retrofit work. BPI certification is required for many energy audit jobs.
• Earth Advantage Institute works with builders and developers to bring the most energy efficient, sustainable and healthy homes to the market.

Building operations and maintenance jobs now require working with products that optimize the use of energy in large commercial building. Companies in this area include:

• Locus Technologies, one of our sponsors! Thanks you!
• Clean Urban Energy.
• Hara Software.

Many companies in the area of green building are working on one of the essential elements of the electricity consumption of a building: lighting. Most of them are doing research and development in the use of LED's in lighting fixtures. These employers include:

• ARC Energy.
• Bridgelux.
• Calera.
• Nuventix.
• Redwood Systems.
• SuperBulbs.

A few companies are also working on new ways of building entire structures:

• Blu Homes.
• CalStar.
• Project Frog.