A report released yesterday, “Sizing the Clean Economy,” which is based on the Brookings-Battelle Clean Economy Database, ranks the Philadelphia metro area 5th among the 100 largest metro areas for overall size of its share of the clean economy in the US.
The database from which these data are derived is a collaborative effort of Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program and the Battelle Technology Partnership Program.
The report ranks the size, growth, and geography of the “clean” economy in the US, which it defines as "economic activity—measured in terms of establishments and the jobs associated with them—that produces goods and services with an environmental benefi t or adds value to such products using skills or technologies that are uniquely applied to those products."
Philadelphia has, according to the study, 54,325 "clean" jobs.
Other points of interest to the region:
Philadelphia's 54,325 clean economy jobs make up 2.0 percent of all jobs in the region.
Between 2003 and 2010 Philadelphia added 6,573 clean jobs.
On average each clean economy job in Philadelphia produces $15,693 in exports.
Estimated median wage in Philadelphia's clean economy is $43,913; compared to $42,722 for all jobs in Philadelphia.
New York had the most clean jobs at 152,034, followed by Los Angeles (89,592); Chicago (79,388); and the DC metro area (70,828). The Greater Boston area topped in at 41,825 jobs, landing the 8th spot.
According to the study, "the clean economy grew more slowly in aggregate than the national economy between 2003 and 2010, but newer 'cleantech' segments produced explosive job gains and the clean economy outperformed the nation during the recession."
Among the other recommendations for scaling up the clean econmy, the report's authors suggest, "Ensure adequate finance by moving to address the serious shortage of affordable, risk-tolerant, and larger-scale capital that now impedes the scale-up of numerous clean economy industry segments."
They also recommend the creation of a water sciences innovation center and the establishment of a regional clean economy consortia.
"Metropolitan areas, large and small, are now and will increasingly be the nation’s critical centers of clean
economy talent, innovation, and finance and so its top hubs of commercialization, deployment, and trade," the report concludes. "Regions and metropolitan areas, in short, are not a part of the national clean economy; they are that economy."
You can find interactive maps here to dig deeper into the findings.
Once the top dog in clean energy, the United States dropped to third place in terms of investment, falling further from the top spot it held in 2008, with only $34 billion in private clean energy investments.
China continues to lead, according to a new report by the Pew Charitable Trusts, attracting a record $54.4 billion in clean energy investments in 2010 -- a 39 percent increase over 2009 and equal to total global investment in 2004. Germany saw private investments double to $41.2 billion and was second in the G-20, up from third last year.
"The clean energy sector is emerging as one of the most dynamic and competitive in the world, witnessing 630 percent growth in finance and investments since 2004," said Phyllis Cuttino, director, Pew Clean Energy Program. "In 2010, worldwide finance and investment grew 30 percent to a record $243 billion."
The good news is: investment in clean energy has bounced back from the recession, at least globally. The question is, will the US be able to keep pace in the years to come?
That China leads will come as no surprise to readers of The Green Skeptic. That the US is slipping further down the ladder is more disturbing to those of us who see the new green economy as a platform for our competitiveness in the global marketplace.
I sat down yesterday with Eric Garland to explain my opinions on cleantech, green, and more. Here's what Eric had to say on Competitive Futures:
"With a philosophy straight from the European Enlightenment and with credentials from the heart of the environmental movement, Scott Edward Anderson is a rare voice amongst the crowd of green economy hypesters and cynics. In a style that strongly recalls our own approach to holistic, data-based, rational analysis of the future, Scott advises companies, governments and investors on how to think about cleantech with all the complexity and cold logic that it deserves.
"In this edition of the Competitive Futures Podcast, Scott shoots a hole in most of the "green" technologies that are supposed to save us, tells us why China is rapidly outpacing the West on cleantech investments, and why fixing 100 year old buildings is just as important as adopting brand new, shiny silver, nanotech-injected technology when it comes to the long-term future of our energy-efficient, green and clean 21st century economy."
Sharpie, Paper Mate and EXPO have formed a partnership with TerraCycle to repurpose used pens, markers and other writing instruments.
Terracycle is a New Jersey-based "upcycling" company that finds new ways to repurpose otherwise throwaway items like juice pouches, chip bags and the like. According to the company, the partnership "will create the world's first program to collect and reuse pens, markers and other writing instruments while also helping raise funds for schools, charities, and non-profits nationwide."
Collection centers called "Writing Instrument Brigades" will be set up at participating locales, primarily in large corporations and schools where writing instruments are used most. For every writing instrument collected at a Writing Instrument Brigade collection center, two cents will be paid to a school, community group, charity or non-profit organization of the participant's choice.
"Keeping one pen or marker out of a landfill may seem like a small contribution, but multiply that by the estimated $5 billion writing instruments sold in the U.S. each year and it is a big opportunity to reduce waste to landfills," said Ben Gadbois, President of Markers, Highlighters, Art and Office Essentials for Newell Rubbermaid Office Products, maker of Sharpie, EXPO and Paper Mate products.
The collected writing instruments will be dissembled and/or reprocessed to make new products.
TerraCycle is also working with other consumer goods manufacturers including 3M, Mars and OfficeMax, to collect and recycle their products.
Founded in 2001 by then 19 year old Princeton University freshman named Tom Szaky, TerraCycle started from Tom's dream to find way a new, more responsible way of doing business that would be good for the planet, good for people, and good for the bottom line.
Six months ago the appointment of Van Jones was widely anticipated and hailed as a win for the new green economy.
On the subject of green jobs, Jones had hopes of being a uniter not a divider, but remarks from throughout his career -- some as recent as a month before his appointment in the Obama administration -- along with some mistakes and questionable affiliations and associations, have brought about his downfall.
Early this morning, Van Jones resigned his position as the so-called "green jobs czar" in the Obama Administration.
Readers of the green skeptic know that I have been a fan of Van Jones' work on the new green economy. His "eco-capitalist" approach is in keeping with how I feel we need to rebuild our economy: focus on alternative energy and clean tech development and create jobs for as many Americans as possible.
I am no apologist for Van Jones. His widely circulated remarks strike me as foolish and hurtful and divisive -- not in keeping with someone who has often said he wants to bring people together to promote clean energy and jobs that bring people out of poverty. And they in no way represent the Jones I know.
But make no mistake: he said what he said. And taken at face value, his statements are pretty damning and, well, just plain dumb.
In February, Jones called Republicans who prevented environmental legislation "a-holes" and, in June 2008, characterized then President Bush as "sounding like a crackhead" addicted to oil. These are the kind of divisive statements made to appeal to the left-leaning audiences to which they were delivered. (Note the cheering crowds in both videos.)
Were Jones a comedian, he might be able to get away with this stuff -- his delivery of the crackhead line and his adlibbing after are actually pretty good stand-up -- we might not think anything of it.
But coming from someone who told the East Bay Express in 2005 that he was "interested in managing conflict with an eye toward maximizing unity," it seems disingenuous at best.
"There's a tradition of very nasty polemics on the left. I've seen it split coalitions, movements, parties," he told the Express reporter. "This is my concern: it's easy to start a fight, it's hard to finish a fight."
So what exactly did Jones have in mind with the comments in the above videos: entertainment value or divisive politics-as-usual? (The irony is that Jones in these two videos comes across as a kind of lefty equivalent of Glenn Beck, the guy who brought him down, fanning the rhetorical flames with sweeping generalizations and personal attacks.)
And whatever he says about it now, the fact is Jones signed the 911 Truth Statement, along with a bunch of other flaming liberals, boomer lefties, and even Catherine Austin Fitts, a member of the first Bush administration. Did he know what he was signing? If he didn't read it, why sign it?
His comments on Columbine have been widely shown, but here Jones seems to have been taken out of context.
"You’ve never seen a Columbine done by a black child. Never," he says. "They always say, 'We can't believe it happened here. We can't believe it's these suburban white kids.' It's only them. Now, a black kid might shoot another black kid. He's not going to shoot up the whole school."
If you watch the entire video, however, his remarks are not racist.
He's actually calling for compassion for troubled young white males who are "suffering in our society and nobody is saying a word about it," and asks "where is the concern, where is the love, where is the compassion for these young men..." and where is the "loving, affirmative male leadership" that will show the "kind of masculinity that is not brittle and or mean-spirited?"
He could have and should have made his point about the alienation and neglect that young people of all colors and backgrounds feel without bringing up such unfortunate comparisons, but he didn't.
Similarly, his comments in the East Bay Express, about his being communist are easily misconstrued.
In the wake of the Rodney King assault trial verdicts, the 25-year-old Jones, who got swept up in mass arrests at demonstrations in San Francisco, fell in with a group of radicals he met in jail who shared his notions of "trying to be a revolutionary."
"I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th," he said. "By August, I was a communist."
As someone whose opinion I respect said to me last night, it's "hard to dispute someone's own words."
But did he mean he was really a Communist? Did he join the Communist Party?
According to the Express, Jones joined "a socialist collective, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM, which held study groups on the theories of Marx and Lenin and dreamed of a multiracial socialist utopia."
But a decade later, Jones was renouncing the old radicalism of his youth and trying to "present a positive vision Americans can latch onto and vote for," as the Express reporter put it.
"The country is waiting for a movement that inspires people, that doesn't just critique," Jones said. "That's my gut instinct. And when it's resonant, when it's right, people feel how they fit into it. We want a green economy that's strong enough to lift people out of poverty."
In other words, he grew up. This is actually a pretty typical western liberal path: early radicalism, even socialist idealism followed by an awakening of more moderate, free-market leanings and -- sometimes -- followed by an ascent (or fall, depending upon your political persuasion) into neo-conservatism.
The "grown up" Van Jones is the one those of us who believe in the potential of the new green economy embraced and supported. It's too bad the Van Jones that most will remember is the one who is flip and divisive and extreme.
Van made his own bed and must wake up in it. Hopefully, he will learn from his mistakes and renew his commitment to contribute to the vision that inspires and doesn't just critique.
Two decades ago he wrote The Green Consumer (which we published when I worked at Viking Penguin), and over the past 20 years he's become one of the leading advisers and sustainability strategists to Fortune 500 companies.
He knows how to navigate green waters and has ridden enough green waves to show you how to do it too.
Best of all, he doesn't take himself too seriously -- and he doesn't think consumers will ever completely make the change. In other words, you can believe what he says.
Countless pretenders would have you believe that people will change their way of living and buy their way to a better future or greener pastures. Makower, in his new book, Strategies for the Green Economy: Opportunities and Challenges in the New World of Business, says it's probably not possible, given how much consumer habits -- and people in general -- would have to change.
And after more than two decades, Makower seems to think that the more things change the more things stay the same. All the green marketing efforts -- and even the greening of many products and services -- has failed to move the needle when it comes to taking action.
And it turns out, we're all to blame.
"The result of all this--motivated but distrustful consumers, proactive but humble companies, aggressive but often misguided activists, the media's mixed messages, and the lack of norms and standards of what is 'good enough' -- is that it is almost impossible to create a workable green strategy that meets the expectations of a confused and cynical marketplace," Makower writes. "Did I mention that this is a dysfunctional conversation?"
Makower has the research to back up his claims, although the lack of any notes in the book makes it difficult to verify some of the source materials. He has reviewed and studied most of the major consumer-related research on green awareness and attitudes, and he shares with his readers how to interpret such data for their own use.
Part of the problem, according to Makower, stems from the relative complexity of the issues, whether it's climate change, environmental degradation or what it means to be a "good enough" green company. It turns out; it really isn't easy being green, after all.
"What many people don't seem to know (or have forgotten) is that the 'three R's' [reduce, reuse, recycle] represent more than just a clever alliteration; they are a hierarchy of priorities," Makower writes.
He identifies a corresponding hierarchy when it comes to climate change: Reduce your overall consumption of energy; purchase as much as possible from Renewable sources; and Remedy the climate impacts of nonrenewable energy consumed by purchasing carbon offsets.
The staccato style of the book's chapters, which read a bit like a series of loosely connected blog posts (maybe they were?), can be a little disconcerting. Makower covers a lot of ground in such a relatively short book.
Makower concludes that the "virus called the green economy has not hit critical mass." More companies are paying attention and developing programmatic strategies (look at Wal-Mart, GE, and others). "But a high level of interest does not a tipping point make."
Still, in the end, Makower believes there are enormous opportunities for success -- for consumers, companies, and for ordinary citizens. And green will be an enduring issue for businesses and shareholders for years to come.
Strategies for the Green Economy begins to provide a roadmap for companies to create lasting value by going green.
(Disclosure: I formerly wrote for GreenBiz.com, one of Joel Makower's publications.)
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