The “green jobs for all” movement aims to make “green collar” jobs – those that support families
and the environment – accessible to every working man and woman. This report investigates the
potential role of the green building sector in this movement in Austin, TX through a literature
review and interviews with sixteen green building professionals. The findings suggest that
Austin’s green building sector does appear to offer quality green collar jobs with few barriers to
entry in the market. As such, it stands to play an important role in the green for all movement
locally and nationally. Unlike some other sectors of the green economy, the green building
sector, at least in Texas, does not appear to be limited to “eco-elites,” a.k.a., the white, wealthier
Americans who tend to dominate mainstream environmental movements. Although it is not clear
that the green building sector is growing the environmental movement by involving people whose
demographic background is different than most mainstream environmentalists, it does appear that
contractors and subcontractors who build “green” take particular pride in their work. New jobs
are expanding tin the green building sector and green practices among existing trades often gives
firms a competitive edge. There are many potential roles for the city to take in its support of the
green building sector. Voluntary programs are the most popular on all fronts, but the case can
also be made in some cases for mandates. Rating systems are essential to resolve imperfect
information in the market, but rating systems using nationally standardized codes might facilitate
the efficiency of real estate markets by giving appraisers and lenders a rating system they can
trust. / text
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTEXAS/oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/22333 |
| Date | 21 November 2013 |
| Creators | Walsh, Elizabeth A., active 2008 |
| Source Sets | University of Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | electronic |
| Rights | Copyright is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the Libraries' web site by University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works. |
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