CorporateResponsibility.Net

Green jobs. They sound good, don’t they? First off, any job in a recession is welcome. Then you get the satisfaction of, well, let’s not be shy about it, getting paid to save the planet. And finally there’s the prospect of meeting all sorts of like-minded people and comparing tips on composting. Reality, of course, hits like a blast of biomass.

“We are on the edge of a low-carbon industrial revolution,” claimed the Business Secretary Peter Mandelson in March – although he did scale back Gordon Brown’s promise of 100,000 recession-busting “Green New Deal” jobs to just “tens of thousands” of new jobs in the approaching low- carbon economy. The definition of a “green job” is equally nebulous. At the executive end of the spectrum, they are jobs in sustainability and corporate responsibility. “Such jobs transcend all sectors of the economy,” explains Andy Cartland, founder of leading recruitment agency Acre Resources. But a broader sweep might include cycle ‘ instructors and furniture restorers alongside hydrologists and climatologists. Indeed, you may already have a green tinge to your collar already without realising it.

Read the complete article here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/green-jobs-meet-the-movers-and-shakers-at-the-vanguard-of-the-eco-revolution-1818804.html

Green jobs advocate Van Jones has resigned his position within the Obama administration, stating that a growing smear campaign by Republicans should not be allowed to weaken the administration’s work on clean energy and health care.

In a statement released early Sunday morning the special advisor for green jobs said: “I have been inundated with calls–from across the political spectrum–urging me to ’stay and fight’. But I came here to fight for others, not for myself. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past.”

In 2004, when Jones was the director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, he signed a petition calling for congressional hearings and an investigation by the New York Attorney General into “evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur.”

Read the complete article here:

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/18835

And some interesting commentary here:

http://greenbiz.com/blog/2009/09/07/smearing-van-jones