Van Jones goes to Washington

Van Jones is Obama's pick to create a "green" workforce.

Van Jones, one of the icons of the “green” jobs movement, March 10 was appointed by President Barack Obama as Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. According to an e-mail message Jones sent to his supporters on March 11, Jones' job “will be to help shape the administration's energy and climate policy, so that climate solutions produce jobs and justice for all Americans.”

Understanding which businesses will be doing the actual work, and determining their needs will be key for Jones, says Ron Pernick, co-founder and managing director of Portland-based Clean Edge, a research firm focused on the cleantech and renewable energy sectors.

The cleantech field is ripe for the kind of “green” job growth being championed by the Obama administration and Jones, according to Pernick. A report released by CleanEdge March 9 said that the number of jobs in the global solar and wind energy industries will more than quadruple from about 600,000 today to 2.65 million in 2018.

Although prospects for the long-term growth of cleantech are stronger than ever, short-term prospects are dim thanks to an enormous economic recession and frozen credit markets, according to Pernick.

“It's very exciting news,” he says about Jones' appointment. “He is a very visible player who ... will try to weave together constituencies of environmental, business and labor groups.” Jones would do well to work with utilities to find out what they need from a “green” focused workforce, Pernick says. Utilities will be driving renewable energy development thanks to new tax credit and rebate incentives, Pernick says. Jones should also try to help create streamlined systems to get government funds to utilities and developers as soon as possible, he says.

The recently passed  American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 includes an investment of $113.5 billion in clean energy and green jobs, according to The Apollo Alliance an Oakland-based nonprofit working on green jobs training that grew out of Jones' Ella Baker Center.