ANN ARBOR—As presidential candidates promote environmental jobs as a way to revive U.S. economic growth, a national survey wants to answer the question: Is the emerging “green” economy color-blind?

Conducting the assessment of the green-jobs sector is the Minority Environmental Leadership Development Initiative (MELDI) at the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE).

The survey will look at the supply-and-demand dynamics of the environmental labor force. It will examine the demand for green jobs, where will they be created and which companies will create them. Then it will study the supply of minority workers by looking at how environmental justice groups identify, train and supply that segment of the overall workforce.

When complete, the results and MELDI’s analysis will be made available through a retooled web site. The site will make it easier to distribute information about the job market, environmental leadership issues and recruiting and hiring, which will be particularly helpful to companies and nonprofit organizations, said Dorceta E. Taylor, a professor at SNRE and director of MELDI.

“From a national perspective, we do not know how the emergence of the new energy economy will reshape the labor market,” Taylor said. “More importantly, we do not know how these employment shifts will affect traditionally underemployed populations.”

The survey is being finalized this summer and will be distributed this fall. The project is funded by a $195,000 grant from the Ford Foundation. In addition to the survey and Web site work, the grant will help MELDI complete its Environmental Justice Research Directory of environmental justice researchers nationwide and an environmental justice research book stemming an earlier conference.

“Certainly, the green economy needs to be more open,” Taylor said. “At this point in the sector’s evolution, the question is: Can we make the right investments and adopt the right policies to train more minorities for those jobs?”

These aren’t idle questions. In the years ahead, the United States will contain more racial minorities than in the past. Meanwhile, the U.S. workforce is getting younger and comprised of more women and minorities. These trends have dramatic implications for environmental institutions, Taylor said. The workers that will comprise the bulk of the pool of potential employees will look different (in terms of racial and class composition) from those working in environmental organizations today.

Congress addressed this same issue last fall, when it passed the Green Jobs Act of 2007 as part of an energy bill. The Act sets aside $25 million to train low-income workers in green-collar jobs.

“The question I have in my mind is, are they training for the right job?” Taylor said.

Despite the challenge that awaits environmental institutions as they try to adapt their workforce to respond to demographic trends, MELDI is the only known group studying the demographic trends in the environmental workforce from a national perspective.

As the green economy emerges, two changes are taking place. New jobs are being created at environmental nonprofit organizations and in government agencies, Taylor said. And corporations are retrofitting and retooling themselves to become greener. Both trends are significantly broadening both the definition and number of environmental jobs available.

This environmental labor force realignment occurs as community organizations working on environmental justice and labor issues are scrambling to find solutions to the unemployment problems plaguing low-income and minority communities. Some of these organizations are identifying and training low-income and minority people to participate in the green workforce. However, the community-organizing strategies being used in various locales around the country needs to be complemented by a larger analysis, which the MELDI study will provide, Taylor said.

MELDI was established in 2002 at SNRE to enhance the leadership and career development opportunities available to minority students and minority environmental professionals. The Initiative provides information to help more minority students embark on environmental careers. MELDI studies micro and macro trends in historical and contemporary demographic trends in the environmental labor force.

The School of Natural Resources and Environment’s overarching objective is to contribute to the protection of the earth’s resources and the achievement of a sustainable society. Through research, teaching, and outreach, faculty, staff, and students are devoted to generating knowledge and developing policies, techniques and skills to help practitioners manage and conserve natural and environmental resources to meet the full range of human needs on a sustainable basis. Today, SNRE has one of the largest clusters of environmental justice faculty and students in the world. Twelve SNRE faculty are affiliated with the program. There are several other environmental justice faculty around the University of Michigan that SNRE students can also work with.

School of Natural Resources and Environment