For someone who’s not from around here, the Buffalo Metro Area is Buffalo. For anyone who’s spent any real time here, Buffalo, Tonawanda, Amherst, Cheektowaga, Lackawanna and all the rest are distinctly different. The same thing is true of Green Jobs and Sustainable Jobs, they share some things in common, but they definitely different. Just like it is important to know the difference between Buffalo and its suburbs, it is important to understand the difference between Green Jobs and Sustainable Jobs.
To begin with, all jobs have an economic importance. This is one thing a Green Jobs Initiative and a Sustainable Jobs Initiative would share. Both would add jobs to the city, which means a positive economic benefit. Both have little or no negative environmental impact and this is one reason why the two are often confused.
Green Jobs are environmentally based. This means they have a positive impact on the environment. A good example would be wind power generation. The operation and maintenance of a wind farm has a net positive impact on the environment because of the reduction of environmental damage caused by coal burning power plants and the mining of coal. But there is also a reduction in carbon dioxide over the clean burning natural gas. So wind is a “clean” industry, no emissions to pollute the air or contribute to global warming.
Sustainable Jobs are based on local resources and meet local needs. So while they also need to have little or no negative environmental impact, they need to use locally based resources and provide opportunities for local residents. This sounds obvious, but consider what happens if the wind turbines in the Green Jobs example are manufactured in Cleveland, Ohio. The money for the turbines leaves Buffalo and goes to Cleveland, supporting jobs for Cleveland residents. When parts are needed, the money goes to Cleveland.
Now consider if Buffalo and the surrounding communities became a zero waste zone and recycled all of the glass, plastic and metals in the area. If this material was turned into the turbines by local workers, then these would be Sustainable Jobs as well as Green Jobs. The raw material is locally available, the market is locally based but there is also a net positive impact on the environment. If the company was locally based and provided fair wages and benefits, it would meet the criteria set for receiving sustainable venture capital in places that have created those kinds of investment funds to develop Sustainable Jobs. That would keep all of the money: the capital, the profit, wages, sales – everything – in the area where it gets re-spent and re-spent over and over again.
The Larkin Company did something like this in Buffalo during the 10 day long “banking holiday” in 1933. It issued $36,000 worth of "merchandise bonds" which it used to pay its employees. At the time, the employees could get most products through the Larkin outlets, but there were some things they needed cash for. But since most Buffalo residents were willing to accept the bonds in lieu of cash, these bonds turned over enough times to allow the sale of $250,000 worth of merchandise. This provided a significant boost to the Larkin business which helped keep its own and other Buffalo workers, employed.
Making Buffalo energy independent would keep a lot of money in the area rather than sending it to other states or countries. Wind, solar, biodiesel are all possibilities for both Green and Sustainable Jobs. Developing an electric mass transit system which ran on renewable energy and eliminated the need for cars would not only be another Green Industry Sector, but would also create jobs in eco-tourism as people came to Buffalo to see how this system worked. If it was manufactured locally from recycled materials (possibly the cars it was replacing) it would be a Sustainable Industrial Sector as well.
Most people don’t realize that there is also money to be made in trading carbon credits on the Chicago Carbon Exchange. These credits are carbon dioxide emission reductions that one entity sells another so the other can increase its emissions. The entity that owns the reduction in carbon emissions can sell them on the exchange. At least one company is leasing space for solar panels on residential roofs to take advantage of this. The home owner gets low cost renewable power, the company gets to depreciate the panels, sell the power they generate and bundle the carbon savings from all of the panels for sale in Chicago. This is a Green Business. If the panels (or any other goods) were locally built using recycled materials, the company building them could bundle a substantial amount of carbon savings from use of those materials, making this both a Green and a Sustainable Business.
Government and education can both be greener and can be Sustainable Sectors of the economy if they are managed that way. Other cities are doing this and doing it successfully. Urban agriculture could easily produce another $40 million/year of Sustainable Green Jobs within the Buffalo city limits, again other US and Canadian cities are doing this successfully. These other cities engage their residents about what the municipal priorities should be. Then, with that input of their residents, develop the programs and the spending priorities necessary to meet them. The people of Buffalo will have to take this role in developing Green and/or Sustainable Jobs initiative if they want those jobs to be created.