The District of Columbia hopes to benefit from an impending boom in so-called green industries by training its residents to hold the jobs that will be required to construct environmentally friendly buildings, abate lead paint or clean the Anacostia River.
The Green Collar Job Advisory Council, Mayor Adrian Fentyannounced Monday, will coordinate a litany of government agencies, nonprofits and contractors to ensure that D.C. residents are prepared for the anticipated green building boom. Under D.C. law, all new government construction will have to be green as of 2008, and all new private sector buildings larger than 50,000 square feet must be built to strict environmental standards as of 2012.
“The Green Collar Advisory Council will identify the demand for green-collar jobs in the District of Columbia, working with for-profit and nonprofit organizations to promote a green economy,” Fenty said during a news conference outside Cardozo High School.
Investing in the environment, including job training, will usher in thousands of new jobs and upward of $800 million in new revenue over the next decade, Fenty said. Not to mention, others said, the quality-of-life benefits.
“What’s at stake here is not just some notion about aesthetics,” Ward 3 D.C. Council Member Mary Cheh said. “What’s at stake here are matters about health. What’s at stake here are matters of economics. … And of course we have a moral obligation.”
Just as D.C. residents aren’t yet trained in green building, neither, it appears, are most builders. Summer Spencer, director of the Department of Employment Services, said a recent meeting with 18 contractors yielded only a couple with appreciable experience working to strict environmental standards.
“They’re eager to learn,” Spencer said.
The mayor also announced that District and suburban commuters will be asked to leave their automobiles at home on Sept. 18 for Car Free Day. The event is the brainchild of Ward 6 Council Member Tommy Wells, who arrived with the mayor at Monday’s news conference via a Metrobus.
“It was a good option,” Wells said of the bus. “It’s a good option for all of our residents.”
For more information, visit www.carfreedc.info.
