sustainable employment » Sift Blog

This week’s focus on the Government’s Job Summit has seen a flurry of related activity with a major announcement from ASB Bank that it is establishing a billion dollar jobs fund which will offer below market rate loans to businesses who can show the loans will create employment or prevent people losing their jobs.

In commenting on the ASB move, Prime Minister John Key stated:

I anticipate the Summit will produce other innovative ideas that can help and create employment.

We wonder whether the concept of Green Jobs will feature to any degree in the Jobs Summit discussions and outcomes despite the Green Party laying out a game plan for Green Job creation as part of its Green New Deal.

A trawl through a selection of ‘green jobs’ websites suggests that elsewhere in the world, the coming together of the current global economic crunch the growing awareness of the fragility of our environment is seeing an increasing employment focus on ‘Green Jobs.”

In places as far apart as Germany, Silicon Valley and New Jersey, we see Governments, Foundations and Corporations recognising the win-win opportunity we currently have to create a more resilient and sustainable economy via Green Job agendas.

In New Zealand, the Green New Deal being promoted by the Green Party is a recipe to ensure the jobs we create make New Zealand less vulnerable to threats posed by overseas economic development, climate change, the end of cheap oil and other resource scarcity.

Some of the major recommendations the Greens have made to the Job Summit fit well with SIFT’s commitment to  the ‘triple bottom line’ of sustainable economy, through

• Sustainable Economy
• Sustainable Environment
• Sustainable Employment

The Greens advocate investing in the job-rich building industry via new, warm housing and the retro-fitting of up to 90,000 existing houses to make them warm and energy efficient.

Jobs in the roading and public transport sector also provide employment and environment wins as forestry jobs via waste wood to energy and carbon storage while also helping our commercial forestry operations. Add in encouragement for businesses that address waste minimisation opportunities and we start to see a real commitment to employment and a sustainable future with our economic and environmental destiny increasingly in our hands.

What are your thoughts?