What is a Green Job?

Many green job definitions have been published, including by the United States Bureau of Labor and Statisctics (US BLS), and the United Nations; these definitions are great and useful to the green industry, businesses and politicians, but they don't really help job seekers.

Also, a lot of people think that Green Jobs are essentially in energy production (solar, wind, geothermal, hydro-electric), but there are a lot more categories of green jobs than just energy production (read related story: Green jobs not just limited to energy sector).

Green jobs span a huge diversity of jobs in many types of green categories, and many types of occupations. To help job seekers navigate this maze of green jobs, The Green Job Bank has classified green jobs in a two-tier category system.

The top level categories of green jobs include:

• Green energy jobs in the production of Renewable energy or clean energy, or Alternative Energy.
• Green energy jobs in the transportation and distribution of green energy (also called the "smart grid").
• Green energy jobs in the storage of green energy.
• Green energy jobs in energy efficiency and energy conservation.
• Green jobs in Green Building.
• Green jobs in Clean technology and products other than energy and transportation.
• Green jobs in Clean Transportation such as electric/hybrid cars and trucks, and associated infrastructure.
• Green jobs in Environmental Sciences.
• Green jobs in the study and remediation of climate change.
• Green jobs in Forestry, organic agriculture and food products.
• Green jobs in Corporate Sustainability.

One of the main obstacles in landing a green job (that politicians are not considering enough) is training, education and certification. Many green jobs require the job applicant to obtain some kind of certification. Many training and education providers offer training classes to get these certifications. The most popular of these education programs and certifications include:

• LEED Certification
• Energy efficiency auditor
• Solar installation
• Wind Installation
• Higher education programs such as
  • Green MBA's
  • Sustainability Management

As a former software engineer, I'm very happy to report that many software engineering and software development jobs are green jobs, especially in the smart grid and green building categories at companies such as Locus Technologies, (one of our sponsors, thank you!), Hara Software and OPower.