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On the eve of high-level policy discussions about the federal role in job creation, university technology transfer, and regional clusters, the Association of University Research Parks (AURP) releases "The Power of Place 2.0: The Power of Innovation--10 Steps for Creating Jobs, Improving Technology Commercialization, and Building Communities of Innovation". 

Innovation assets for creating jobs

"The Power of Innovation," an update to "The Power of Place: A National Strategy for Building America's Communities of Innovation," outlines the role the federal government can take using research parks and other innovation assets for creating jobs and remaining a front-runner in the global technology competition.

"In 'The Power of Place,' AURP demonstrated how geography and connected communities play a large role in innovation," said Brian Darmody, AURP President. "In 'The Power of Innovation,' we offer ten steps, from policy changes to selected investments, that Congress and the President can take quickly to leverage existing federal assets to create jobs, technology companies and communities of innovation, without creating new bureaucracies."

AURP releases "The Power of Innovation" shortly after the Senate Commerce Committee passed Senate Bill 583: Building A Stronger America Act, sponsored by Senator Mark Pryor. The bill will now be considered by the full Senate. Its companion bill, H.R. 4413: The SPRINT Act, has been referred to the House Committee on Science and Technology.

"Science parks provide a launch pad for economic activity in a community. They have a strong record of fostering talent, high tech innovation and job growth. Providing seed funding to create or expand these parks is a necessary investment for our economy as well as our global competitiveness," said Senator Mark Pryor.

The key to moving forward? According to Darmody, connectivity and flexibility in the federal government's investment in research spending, infrastructure support and other programs.

"The federal government, invests billions of dollars a year in research and development at universities and federal labs, and technology led economic development programs. We need better alignment among research universities, university research parks, technology incubators, sponsored program offices, and technology-transfer officials to meet better our nation's global technology competition," said Darmody.

About AURP: The Association of University Research Parks is a professional association of university related research and science parks. AURP's mission is to foster innovation, commercialization and economic growth through university, industry and government partnerships. For more information, visit AURP's Web site at www.aurp.net or contact Chelsea Simpson at chelseasimpson@aurp.net.

Green jobs and green careers are based on a new set of job performance tools -- they could be called the "ecometrics" of the new green economy.  As explained by a professor of mechanical engineering...wow!... the same new tools being used by businesses to measure their environmental impact, are also the new tools needed by employees in the green economy.

"Interface CEO, Ray Anderson, developed 'Ecometrics' as the term for their measurement system to track their progress. These indicators include waste reduction, renewable energy, carbon emissions, water and energy usage, and percentage of recycled and biobased materials in products. Much more detail on their site includes data on the reduction of energy used per unit of product manufactured, waste diverted landfills, etc. They are green manufacturers and one of the leaders of developing a business strategy for green manufacturing and, eventually, sustainability," says David Dornfeld,  a mechanical engineering professor.

The New Career "Ecometrics"

Environmental indicators include

• waste reduction
• renewable energy
• carbon emissions
• water and energy usage
• percentage of recycled materials in products.
• biobased materials in products

How do you add these new career tools to your credentials?  Some of them come from field experience ... knowing the core operations of your business.  But some are new methods of accounting, product design, and marketing strategies that weight different features and factors in new ways. 

Waste reduction is an example.  In sustainability and green manufacturing, nothing is defined as "waste".  It's kind of like "Prince" who changed his name to ... "the person formerly known as 'Prince"!

Waste materials are now either reduced into non-existence...or seen as valuable resources to be reclaimed and reused in your own operations or by someone else.  Energy is one of the most widely affected "waste".  Energy efficiency reduces wasted energy.  Heat reclamation can use wasted energy in internal processes.  And used petroleum can be recycled or reclaimed.  Packaging can use recycled content and use manufacturing and printing processes that make the material more easily recycled in a future generation. 

Certifications can help you learn these new job skills, and industry metrics.  New certifications are being developed by many trade associations, government agencies and nonprofit organizations to help expand these new skills, and share them with the workforce in the field.

Our new website, "GreenJobWizard.com" is a directory of certification programs that help you upgrade your career skills to today's cutting edge green, sustainable and high-performance metrics... you could call them the "ecometrics" of the new economy.  

Apollo Alliance Chairman Phil Angelides joined Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown on Capitol Hill to introduce the "Investments for Manufacturing Progress and Clean Technology Act (IMPACT) Act of 2009." The measure, which Sen. Brown hopes to enact as part of our new national energy policy, proposes a $30 billion revolving loan fund designed to help small- and medium-sized manufacturers improve their energy efficiency, retrain workers for clean energy manufacturing jobs, and retool plants in order to expand into the clean energy supply chain.

Senator Brown based his proposal on Apollo Alliance's Green Manufacturing Action Plan (GreenMAP), which was introduced in April and lays out aggressive steps to scale up production of American-made clean energy systems and components while making U.S. factories more energy efficient.

The country's manufacturers are poised to act on our recommendations. The recovery bill signed by President Obama in February, the appropriations bill enacted in March, and the budget agreement approved in April commit more than $300 billion to clean energy investment and green-collar job generation. These investments will provide vast new clean energy markets, but "without a program to support our own domestic manufacturers, policies that create new demand for clean energy will just lead to more imports," explained Angelides.

A carbon-free economy refers to the amount of power generated from high-carbon / or petroleum sources.

Generation of energy and use of carbon fuels in concentrated in coal, petroleum and natural gas. Each carbon source carries a different amount of carbon impact. Weather as well as production capabilites and changes affect the level of carbon-intensive energy generation. Alternative energy is the recommended solution for a carbon economy. Those alternative energies are renewables: solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, etc.

California had a carbon peak in 2004 due primarily to the low snowpack that year. Because of the limited capacity for hydroelectric generation, more power was generated by natural gas or coal plants.

At the end of 2005, a coal plant located in Nevada and serving Southern California was shut down, and replacement power came from an in-state natural gas plant.

California's Carbon Economy continues a steady downward trend in the direction of a carbon- free economy. The downward trend could mean either that the State's economy is growing at a faster rate than GHG emissions or that emissions are decreasing at a faster rate than the economy is growing.

Over the long term and on a per-capita basis, California has made significant progress in delinking economic growth from GHG emissions. While GDP per capita has increased by 28% in 16 years, gross emissions per capita are 10% lower than in 1990.

Knowing how the carbon free economy will affect green careers and green jobs in California is part of a good career planning strategy. We suggest you read the annual "CALIFORNIA GREEN INNOVATION INDEX" (2009) to keep pace with green career data that will help you develop appropriate job skills and job search strategies to keep pace with the growing green economic shifts.

The Index provides insight on a California culture that includes three decades of ambitious state environmental and energy policies, putting California on a path to energy independence and one of the lowest per capita carbon footprints in the nation, all the while growing one of the most vigorous economies in the world.

California is at the forefront of green innovation investment and jobs. New data presented in the 2009 California Green Innovation Index shows that while total jobs increased by just ONE PERCENT statewide, green jobs have increased by TEN PERCENT since 2005.

Clean technology investment in California nearly doubled in 2008, reaching $3.3 billion. California is a national leader in solar, wind and battery patents. Still, more needs to be done in terms of both creation and adoption of new clean technology products and services to give California the leading edge in what is fast becoming a multibillion-dollar global clean technology market.

The California Green Innovation Index tracks California's effort to grow the economy while dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions as mandated by the California Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32).

Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32) was signed into California law in 2006, mandating the first ever statewide cap on global warming pollution.  AB 32 has put California at the forefront of the fight against global warming by requiring the state to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. On December 11, 2008, the agency charged with the
implementation of AB 32, California Air Resources Board, adopted the Scoping Plan that lays out the actions California must take to meet the GHG emissions reduction targets.

Research included in this 2009 Green Innovation Index provides further evidence of the powerful economic stimulus clean energy policy can provide.

California's energy productivity, that is, the amount of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) produced per unit of energy, is 68% more productive than the rest of the nation.

Energy efficiency policies forged by California over the last 35 years have saved consumers over $56 billion, creating 1.5 million full-time jobs and $45 billion in payroll.

CALIFORNIA GREEN INNOVATION INDEX (2009)
The California Green Innovation Index provides insight on a California culture that includes three decades of ambitious state environmental and energy policies, putting California on a path to energy independence and one of the lowest per capita carbon footprints in the nation, all the while growing one of the most vigorous economies in the world. Download a copy of the report at Collaborative Economics.

Collaborative Economics, Inc.
785 Castro Street, Suite A
Mountain View, CA 94041
650.404.8120
www.coecon.com

The Pew Charitable Trust, in the publication The Clean Energy Economy: Repowering Jobs, Businesses and Investments Across America, describes five industry categories comprising the clean energy economy.

These include:

• clean energy,
• energy efficiency,
• environmentally friendly production,
• conservation and pollution mitigation,
• training and support

Pew's research indicates a strong start for a new economy still very much in its infancy. To put our clean energy economy numbers in perspective, consider the following.

Research by The Pew Charitable Trusts shows that despite a lack of sustained policy attention and investment, the emerging clean energy economy has grown considerably-- extending to all 50 states, engaging a wide variety of workers and generating new industries.

Between 1998 and 2007, its jobs grew at a faster rate than overall jobs. Like all other sectors, the clean energy economy has been hit by the recession, but investments in clean technology have fared far better in the past year than venture capital overall. 

Looking forward, the clean energy economy has tremendous potential for growth, as investments continue to flow from both the government and private sector and federal and state policy makers increasingly push for reforms that will both spur economic renewal and sustain the environment. By 2007, more than 68,200 businesses across all 50 states and the District of Columbia accounted for about 770,000 jobs that achieve the double bottom line of economic growth and environmental sustainability predict the drop in this sector will be less severe than the drop in U.S. jobs overall.

Biotechnology, which has developed applications for agriculture, consumer products, the environment and health care and has been the focus of significant public policy and government and private investment, employed fewer than 200,000 workers, or about a tenth of a percent of total U.S. jobs in 2007, according to a 2008 Ernst & Young report. And the well-established traditional energy sector--including utilities, coal mining and oil and gas extraction, industries that have received significant government investment--comprised about 1.27 million workers in 2007, or about 1 percent of total employment.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and its partners recently launched the Going Green: Safe and Healthy Jobs initiative to make sure that green jobs are good for workers by integrating worker safety and health into "green jobs" and environmental sustainability.

Examples of green jobs include

• installation and maintenance of solar panels and generators;
• construction and maintenance of wind energy turbines;
• jobs related to recycling;
• jobs related to the manufacture of green products;
• jobs where green products are used in traditional fields such as agriculture, healthcare, and the service sector

Hazards Aren't Green!

In some instances, the hazards to workers may be similar to those in established industries. For example, the safety and health issues involved in building wind turbines may be similar to those for constructing a multi-story building. However, some green and sustainable practices may pose new health concerns for workers, such as the introduction of "green" substitutes for cleaning solvents (see NIOSH blog Multifaceted Approach to Assess Indoor Environmental Quality).

As we make technological advances in industry, we need to remain vigilant in protecting workers against emerging hazards.

Prevention Through Design

These changes may also present us with the opportunity to eliminate hazards through planning, organization, and engineering - a concept known at NIOSH as Prevention through Design (PtD).

As the global community acts quickly to train workers for new occupations and new ways of working, we have unprecedented opportunities:

• to enhance the safety and health protection of the American workforce
• to expand and apply our knowledge in occupational safety and health to new workplaces, processes, and products being formed each day
• to ensure the training and re-training of the workforce that will fill these new jobs includes relevant safety and health information.

Help Frame the Issues and Solutions for Green Job Safety and Health:  December 14, 2009

An upcoming event in NIOSH's new initiative is the Making Green Jobs Safer workshop, which will be held from December 14 to 16, 2009, in Washington, DC. The workshop will bring together invited participants and a limited number of members of the public to help frame the issues around incorporating occupational safety and health into green and sustainability efforts.

It's always a delight to find informative resources for specific solutions.  CleanEdge.com offers two green energy stock index resources.  These company lists could also be used for other purposes -- such as job searches, marketing partners, and products that you would like to buy or carry in your green business.

NASDAQ® Clean Edge® Green Energy Index (CELS) Components

The NASDAQ® Clean Edge® Green Energy Index (CELS) is a modified market capitalization-weighted index designed to track the performance of companies that are primarily manufacturers, developers, distributors, or installers of clean-energy technologies. An exchange traded fund (ETF) is based on the NASDAQ® Clean Edge® Green Energy Index and is sponsored by First Trust Advisors L.P. To learn more about methodologies, up-to-date performance, and licensed products, click here.

NASDAQ OMX® Clean Edge® Global Wind Energy Index (QWND) Components

The NASDAQ OMX® Clean Edge® Global Wind Energy Index (QWND) is a modified market-capitalization index designed to act as a transparent and liquid benchmark for the global wind energy sector. The Index includes companies that are primarily manufacturers, developers, distributors, installers, and users of energy derived from wind sources. An exchange traded fund (ETF) is based on the NASDAQ OMX® Clean Edge® Global Wind Energy Index and is sponsored by PowerShares. To learn more about  methodologies, up-to-date performance, and licensed products, click here.

 Learn more here: http://www.cleanedge.com/ceindex/