“This is an exciting time for the Roundtable as we enter into the second phase of the campaign. As convener of the process, Urban Agenda has worked hard to connect labor unions, community organizations, educators, businesses and environmental and environmental justice advocates around the need for sustainability — while simultaneously seizing opportunities to improve the socio-economic situation for New Yorkers in the transition to a clean energy economy.”

— Joanne Derwin
Executive Director of Urban Agenda

First General Body Convening - June 2008

Second General Body Convening - September 2008

Third General Body Convening - June 2009

More Resources:

Green Collar Jobs Briefing Packet (2.9mb PDF)

Fact Sheet: The Green Collar Jobs Roundtable Campaign (PDF)

Green Collar Jobs Roundtable Blog

Green Collar Jobs Roundtable Resources

On Earth Day 2007, Mayor Bloomberg announced PlaNYC 2030, a set of 127 legislative and policy initiatives designed to create a 'greener, greater New York.' These initiatives, and other green programs and projects, will demand hundreds of thousands of new jobs — green collar jobs. But, the city's workforce development and training system is currently unable to meet this demand.

At the same time, the city is plagued by persistent unemployment and underemployment, particularly in low-income communities of color, many of which are also badly affected by the rising cost of housing and energy, and at greater risk of environmental stress. A well-trained green collar workforce could deal a double blow to these challenges — addressing environmental sustainability demands while also creating new job opportunities and pathways out of poverty.

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To achieve this ambitious goal, Urban Agenda spearheaded the Green Collar Jobs Roundtable, a multi-stakeholder campaign to mobilize the city to prepare New Yorkers for green collar jobs. At its first meeting in June 2008, the Roundtable identified a number of salient issues involved in the development of a just and comprehensive workforce development plan for green collar jobs. Participants broke into six Working Groups, five of which drafted a section of the Roadmap, while the sixth focused on developing a political strategy to target city-based elected officials. All the groups approached their work cross-thematically, focusing on five emerging green collar sectors in the city: transportation, energy, urban forestry, green product development, and environmental monitoring and remediation.

Over the course of the year, the Roundtable process expanded in scope and scale to encompass a range of critical issues. By January of 2009, the coalition had brought together over 170 partners and tapped the collective knowledge of green employers, unions, workforce development providers, and environmental and environmental justice groups to chart a Vision Statement of guiding principles for the campaign, and a Green Jobs Roadmap — a blueprint with targeted recommendations aimed squarely at identifying concrete steps to make the shared vision a reality.

With an aggressive timetable and ever-widening coalition, the process has continued to gain momentum. The Vision Statement has already received wide endorsement. The highly anticipated Roadmap is scheduled for completion in October of 2009. It will be shared — along with the Vision Statement — with mayoral and city council candidates in the 2009 election, in order to mobilize and direct the City towards forward-thinking workforce development for the future.

This is an exciting time for the Roundtable as we enter into the second phase of the campaign. As convener of the process, Urban Agenda has worked hard to connect labor unions, community organizations, educators, businesses and environmental and environmental justice advocates around the need for sustainability — while simultaneously seizing opportunities to improve the socio-economic situation for New Yorkers in the transition to a clean energy economy. In the upcoming months, the campaign plans to train its collective eye on the political landscape and upcoming elections. Armed with support, research and concrete recommendations, the campaign will strategically target City leaders to endorse and enact a comprehensive and coordinated workforce development plan — one that will help make New York City a global leader in good, green collar jobs.