Green Buildings: Win-Win-Win-Win

By retrofitting our nation's buildings to make them energy efficient, we can improve the environment, save consumers money, create good-paying union jobs, and reduce poverty.

That's the word from the panelists at today's "High Performance Buildings & Job Creation" session.

Don Gilligan of the National Association of Energy Services Companies [1] told the crowd that a $7 billion annual investment would save consumers $22 billion in energy costs by 2017, while also creating 400,000 jobs annually.

Steve Cowell of the non-profit consultant Conservation Services Group [2] explained that the new jobs would not come and go after buildings get retrofitted, but good-paying high-skill permanent jobs would be created to operate and manage energy efficient buildings.

And that's a good fit for unions.

And Elsa Barboza of the grassroots Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education [3], and of the Los Angeles Apollo Alliance, talked of how green buildings can strengthen unions and tackle poverty on a mass scale.

Her team is striving to secure $100 million in public funds to retrofit 100 municipal buildings and create 2,000 union jobs.