A New Workforce Development System For A Green Economy

A New Workforce Development System for a Green Economy Ed Morrison Purdue Center for Regional Development [email protected] Dimensions of a Green Economy Workforce A green economy focuses on sustainability, resilience and regeneration. In an industrial economy, our attention is driven toward the business firm — the corporation — and isolated individuals — “rational” consumers and investors. In a green economy, we are drawn to connections: the relationships of ourselves and our organizations to our natural environment. A green economy focuses our attention on open networks and a new concept of regenerative innovation. It requires us to be aware of local ecosystems that are dynamically connected to the global economy. A green economy is also multidimensional and more expansive than a narrower industrial age perspective. This new perspective connects our culture and human resources with the natural resources that sustain us. From the perspective of a green economy, all of these resources demand responsible stewardship. Green jobs represents work in agricultural, manufacturing, research and development, and service activities that contribute substantially to preserving, promoting or restoring the natural systems on which we depend. For example, this definition includes jobs that help protect ecosystems and biodiversity; reduce energy, materials and water consumption; and minimize all forms of waste and pollution.

Moving toward a more sustainable, green economy will shift workforce development in at least four ways: •

New jobs will be created with the development of clean technologies;

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Some employment will be shifted from one technology base to another, such as a shift from fossil fuels to renewables;

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Some jobs will be eliminated as markets shift away from old designs and technology, such as the shift away from materials that cannot easily be recycled;

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Some jobs will be transformed, as new skills are added. For example, construction workers will learn new techniques in efficient building design and construction. In the old industrial economy, jobs were easily classified by education level.

White-collar, salaried jobs involved office work and higher levels of formal education. Blue-collar, wage employment relied on technical education with multiple entry points after high school. Classifying green jobs is not so simple. Green jobs span a wide array of skill levels, educational attainment, and occupations. They share a deeper characteristic: an understanding of interconnection, a perspective of interdependent systems, a view of that our economy consists of networks embedded in other networks. Across the world, green jobs represent an important new category of workforce opportunities. They promise quality employment, meaningful community serving opportunities, decent living wages and other benefits. This transition leaves us with a serious challenge: We cannot effectively prepare for the green economy with a workforce development system designed in the Industrial Age.

Call to Action Developing prosperity in a green economy requires new perspectives, new systems, and a new approach to workforce development. The dynamics of the green economy include the assumption that natural systems, capital, and human resources are connected. Prosperity within a region depends on how well we connect these resources to innovation and productivity: the ability to produce more wealth with less impact on our natural systems. We need new regional systems of regenerative innovation. Our success in the green economy will depend on brainpower and how well we develop and deploy it within these new systems of regenerative innovation. If America wants a strong workforce so that the benefits of green economic development we will need to design a new model of workforce delivery system. Our current workforce development structures, designed in an industrial age, must transition into delivery systems that are more resilient, flexible and adaptive. We will need to move from free-standing hierarchical workforce organizations to open networks in which resources can be quickly aligned, linked and leveraged. We need to design systems based on open source networks. Only these networks will have the resilience we need to respond rapid change. Regions with workforce systems based on open networks will be more competitive. They will spot opportunities faster, they will align their resource faster, and they will be more agile in equipping their workforce with the skills needed to compete.

Designing New Workforce Systems: The Value of Youthful Perspective We are in the midst of a painful transition from old to new workforce development systems. This transformation requires great human creativity, tremendous ingenuity, new insights, and the widespread civic participation. We will need new rules of the education and workforce development game, as we move toward a more inclusive, connected perspective of “balanced markets” and a green economy. This journey will take years, and, as we start, we should confess our ignorance. No one is quite sure how the details of work life in a green economy will be organized. We do know, however, that our Industrial Age approach to workforce development organizations is not up to the task. It is too fragmented, inflexible, and incoherent. We also know that today’s youth can provide us valuable insights into the education and workforce transitions we face as we move toward a green economy. Our youth have grown up in a connected world. While adults are immigrants to the experience of digital connection, our youth are natives. Their experience and insights blur Industrial Age boundaries. They are capable of sensing the emerging green economy in ways that are different from adults whose formative experiences are rooted in a different time. Regions that successfully engage youthful perspectives are more likely to manage the transition to a green economy successfully by preparing the workforce of tomorrow. Youth have many of the skills we will need in designing new workforce systems. They are connected. They are more experienced and comfortable in the horizontal world of open networks than in the vertical world of command-and-control organization. They are skilled at searching within vast amounts of information and sensing meaningful patterns. They respond well to experiential learning and different forms of information delivered digitally. They’re

comfortable with learning experiences that are delivered anytime anywhere. They define The value of work and work security in different ways. They are skeptical, pragmatic and independent. They are oriented toward action, and they are impatient with leaders who fail to recognize the importance of the interconnectivity that defines the green economy. Designing a Workforce System for the Green Economy A workforce system for the green economy will have the following characteristics: •

Regular regional and local forums that focused on accelerating innovation in green workforce development through the discipline of strategic doing. This discipline enables individuals to define and execute complex projects in an open network. The Center will teach high school youth and young professionals how to design and implement these forums, as well as how to leverage these forums and broader open innovation networks.

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Expanded STEM-based curricula delivered across secondary and postsecondary regional education through experiential learning based on projects connected to employers in the great economy.

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Expanded early college options for high school students. These options blur the lines between high school and post-secondary education.

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New career guidance and internship systems designed to link students with emerging opportunities in the regional green economy.

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New workforce industry partnerships designed to meet the brainpower needs of companies within the emerging clean technology clusters.

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Rapid “design and deploy” certifications for the new skills in the green economy.

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New protocols for developing strategic action plans, organizing strategic initiatives, and measuring performance through practical metrics.

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New information systems for workforce development with integrated tools for business cluster and occupational cluster analysis. These tools will enable us to chart different career pathways more easily.

Reference: “Green Jobs: Towards decent work in a sustainable, low carbon world”, Worldwatch Institute for the United Nations Environmental Programme (2008).