Green Jobs Movement Leaves Women Behind
A report by the U.N. released last week found that women eat more vegetables, use less fuel for travel, and are more likely to buy eco-friendly products than men. Yet in the bio-fuel and energy sectors, women comprise only 18.7 and 7.6 percent, respectively, of the total workforce in those industries. Moreover, the numbers for minority women were even lower—only 4 percent of green jobs are held by African-American or Latino women, according to a study by the Women of Color Policy Network.
A report by the U.N. released last week found that women eat more vegetables, use less fuel for travel, and are more likely to buy eco-friendly products than men. Yet in the bio-fuel and energy sectors, women comprise only 18.7 and 7.6 percent, respectively, of the total workforce in those industries. Moreover, the numbers for minority women were even lower—only 4 percent of green jobs are held by African-American or Latino women, according to a study by the Women of Color Policy Network.
In Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Apollo Alliance and Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education (SCOPE) worked together to pass an ordinance to establish the Green Retrofit and Workforce Program last April, which includes the establishment of the Green Career Ladder Training Program to train 2,000 public and private-sector green-collar workers in green building construction and maintenance. In New York, community organization Sustainable South Bronx runs the BEST Academy to train Bronx residents for green-collar careers and put them to work on green infrastructure projects throughout the borough. Non-profit Green For All runs a program called Green Pathways out of Poverty, in which representatives work with communities throughout the country to develop programs to prepare the local available work force for green-collar careers; it also runs Retrofit America’s Cities, which helps communities develop energy retrofitting projects and train local community members to work on those projects.
All of these programs have been developed to help groups that have been left out of the mainstream green job market, particularly women, people of color, and low-income communities.
