I have always been fascinated by the clean tech movement and the race for clean energy dominance. Earlier this spring, I wrote several blog posts on the green sector, and hosted Carol McClelland, author of "Green Careers for Dummies" live on my blog.


During the summer, I did a lot of research on clean tech trends, clean tech job growth, financing models for the clean tech sector, and on the specifics of the clean tech industry in Massachusetts. Just last week, as I tweeted about Massachusetts Clean Tech firms that were hiring (original blog post by Green Job Spider), I thought that it was time to cover this topic in greater depth in one of our newsletters.


In this post, I'll focus on clean tech job trends, and provide resources for those of you who are interested in seeking employment in this sector.

What is Clean Tech and Where Are the Jobs?

Clean tech, sometimes referred to as green tech, describes new and existing industries that are developing products and services that improve the performance and efficiency of energy consumption, alternative energy generation, green consumer products, and environmentally friendly products and services.

 
Despite the economic malaise, clean tech and clean energy continues to fuel the plans of many cities, states, and nations as they look for the next big wave of growth. Clean tech is no longer a "marginalized niche" but actually a cost-competitive mainstream sector that offers an abundance of newly created and revamped job opportunities.

 
I have summarized below the key findings from the research I have done:

 
§  Clean energy jobs are growing faster than jobs in other sectors, and increasing by 9.1% from 1998 to 2007. (Pew Charitable Trust survey)

§  The clean tech sector creates employment as a result of the development, production, and deployment of technologies that use renewable energy materials and sources. There also are jobs that reduce the use of natural resources and increase efficiency, or eliminate pollution and toxic wastes.

§  The top five sectors for clean tech job activity in the U.S. are:

• Solar
• Biofuels and Biomaterials
• Smart Grid and Energy Efficiency
• Wind Power
• Advanced Transportation and Vehicles

§  Clean Edge (www.cleanedge.com) has identified 15 metro areas for clean tech job activity. Not surprising, San Francisco and Boston are in the top 5. The top 5 U.S. metro areas are:

• San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose (CA)
• Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside (CA)
• Boston-Cambridge-Quincy (MA)
• New York-New Jersey-Long Island (NY-NJ)
• Denver-Aurora-Broomfield (CO)

§  Even though 15 areas have been earmarked for clean tech job growth, the clean tech sector is highly dispersed and no one city or region will dominate. Clean tech clusters have sprouted up in many other places including Ohio, Missouri, Norway, Japan, Singapore, and others.

§  Of the top 10 clean tech employers, only two are headquartered in the U.S. This list of employers points to the continued dominance of China, with six of the largest employers located in China and Hong Kong. The remaining two are European.

§  Large multinational corporations also are trying to get into the game, with conventional and clean tech activities and products/services. Companies such as Siemens, GE Energy, Cisco, Sharp, Toyota, Ford, Samsung, and others are investing in, creating new divisions in, and subsequently hiring more clean tech employees.

§  Manufacturing facilities around the U.S. that were once used in old-line industries such as appliances and automobiles are being retrofited to emerge as clean tech manufacturing sites.

§  Clean tech training and educational initiatives are being launched by community colleges, for new fields such as energy auditing, home weatherization, solar fabrication, and wind turbine manufacturing. Degrees in renewable energy are being created in undergraduate schools and many MBA programs are launching green MBA degrees.

§  Energy efficiency is one of the hottest areas for job growth. This includes jobs for building retrofits and smart grid, home weatherization, lighting upgrades, and grind infrastructure. New job titles are emerging such as Energy Auditor, Weatherization Operations Manager, Green Building and Retrofit Architect.

CNN Money, citing Clean Edge and other sources, did an interesting article on where the green jobs are. Here are a few interesting facts and the top 10 cities for green jobs:

• Clean energy employment rose by 9.1% between 1998 and 2007, versus 3.7 % growth for all jobs during the same period (Pew Charitable Trust Study).

• As of June this year, green jobs will account for 770,000 jobs in the U.S. compared to more mature industries such as telecommunications (900,000 jobs) or biotech (200.000) (Pew Charitable Trust Study)

Top 10 Metropolitan Areas:

• San Francisco
• Los Angeles
• New York
• Boston
• Washington
• Denver
• Seattle
• Portland
• Chicago
• Sacramento

To read the complete article go, to http://bit.ly/1Jkthw.

Boston-Power has just won another round of venture capital worth $60 million, which will help the company plan for its next level of growth. Although manufacturing will take place in Taiwan, Mass will house research, development and marketing operations. The firm plans to DOUBLE its staff in the next few years.