1. The University of Tennessee found in 2006 that the United States economy would create about 2 million jobs over 10 years and 5 million jobs by 2025 if the country decided to produce 25 percent of the country’s electricity and 25 percent of motor fuels from renewable sources by 2025. [University of Tennessee, 25% Renewable Energy for the United States By 2025: Agricultural and Economic Impacts, November 2006. The study asserted that, by 2025, the economic activity from meeting the goal above would exceed $700 billion and generate more than 5.1 million jobs annually.To get to the 5 million jobs number, the study adds direct impact jobs, indirect impact jobs and induced impacts jobs.

Direct impact jobs result from an increased demand for the industry in question. Indirect impact jobs results from increased demand for workers by other industries because of demand from the green-collar jobs.  Induced impact jobs result from general increase in overall demand because there is more workers and businesses making more money and boosting the overall economy.Looking at the “d direct Impact” or green-collar jobs, the study predicts 1,265,150 jobs will be created by reaching the 25 percent by 2025 goal. 

The 1.3 million “direct” jobs from a 10-year investment of $150 billion is roughly the same ratio as 5 million “direct” jobs from a 10-year investment of $500 billion. 

2. A recent University of Caifornia at Berkeley study suggests at least 5 million new jobs will be generated from energy efficiency. The study by found that efficiency improvements drive innovation, productivity growth, and consumer savings. Within an overall framework of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and transitioning to renewables, the benefits from efficiency improvements could help create more than a million new jobs in California alone over the next ten years. [U.C. Berkeley, Economic Assessment for Climate Action in California, 2007]. Based on conservative assumptions, this study suggests that the nationwide benefit from efficiency gains could help create well over 5 million jobs over a decade.”

The report cites a specific projection from a 2001 study that posited that solid waste management “directly accounts for about one half of one percent of US GDP, and, including all direct and indirect effects of industry activities, contributes just over one percent of US GDP. Using multipliers of $1.23 in additional revenue per solid waste revenue dollar and 1.58 estimated outside jobs generated per solid waste job, solid waste generates $96 billion revenue and 948,000 jobs, as well as contributing ‘a total of $14.1 billion in direct, indirect, and induced taxes to federal, state, and local governments.’” This suggests that, like the University of Tennessee report’s job and output estimates, this figure includes direct, indirect and induced employment.

This is further supported by the report’s assertion that “many [other] studies emphasize the costs of policies that deal with climate change because they look only at the direct effects. This one finds that many policies under active consideration in California actually save money and increase employment overall because the indirect and incentive effects are so important. These overall benefits only become apparent when the economy-wide implications and innovation potential of the policies are taken into account. Energy savings allow consumers to increase other spending, largely on in-state goods and services, and this stimulates California growth and employment. Industry-specific and bottom-up studies of GHG policies fail to capture these indirect benefits, giving disproportionate emphasis to direct costs.

3. Other studies that have analyzed the direct job impact from efficiency investments find that the benefits would be substantial:

i)      Catalyzing a Green Building Industry: Barack’s commitment to modernize 1 million homes per year, improve building efficiency and update the federal building stock will encourage the creation of more than 500,000 private sector “green-collar” jobs. [Apollo Alliance, New Energy for America, 2004; National Association for State Community Services Programs, 2007].

ii)    Green Jobs from Updating Our Energy Grid: Barack’s plan will catalyze significant private investment in modernizing our outdated energy grid. Such investment would create new jobs and drive efficiency improvements as well. This could help create more than 400,000 private sector jobs over a decade. [Apollo Alliance, New Energy for America, 2004].

4. In May, Heidi Pickman, the Apollo communications associate, posted a comprehensive Data Points piece that described what we know about clean energy and job generation. It is the best compendium of green-collar jobs by sector on the Web. See it here.

5. Our own 2004 Apollo New Energy For America report, which the Obama campaign heavily borrowed from for its own New Energy For America plan, details green-collar job numbers by sector. 

– Seph Petta