Green Economy

HomeGreen Economy

The Labor Center Green Economy Program conducts research on issues of job creation, quality, access, and training in the emergent green economy. In addition, we provide research and technical assistance to state agencies, labor, and other stakeholders who are engaged in developing and implementing policy related to energy and climate change in California and nationally.

Spotlight

Tool/Resource

July 3, 2024

Green Economy Public Funding Trackers – National and California
Report

March 25, 2024

Factsheet: Workforce Standards for an Equitable Economy
Report

September 20, 2023

California’s Climate Investments and High Road Workforce Standards: Gaps and Opportunities for Advancing Workforce Equity
Report

April 26, 2023

Fossil fuel layoff: The economic and employment effects of a refinery closure on workers in the Bay Area

Research & Publications

View Testimony

January 14, 2025 -

Jessie HF Hammerling,Will ToaspernandLaura Schmahmann

Refining Transition: A Just Transition Economic Development Framework For Contra Costa County, California

In this report, we discuss the challenges and opportunities facing Contra Costa as it prepares for the cascading effects of an energy transition that is already unfolding. We propose a just transition framework to guide an economic development strategy capable of addressing the specific challenges facing Contra Costa and setting the county on a path toward a more resilient, healthy, and equitable local economy.

September 25, 2024 -

UC Berkeley Labor Center

California Green Economy Public Funding Tracker

The California Green Economy Public Funding Tracker provides information on open funding opportunities from California state agencies related to climate, clean energy, and the workforce. It includes programs supported or administered by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), California Energy Commission (CEC), California Climate Investments, Strategic Growth Council, California Workforce Development Board (CWDB), and more.

July 3, 2024 -

UC Berkeley Labor Center

Green Economy Public Funding Trackers – National and California

National and California-based funding trackers for green economy projects. The databases track notices of funding opportunities from various agencies and provides a description of the grants, application links, key dates, webinar dates, and other information.

March 25, 2024 -

UC Berkeley Labor Center

Factsheet: Workforce Standards for an Equitable Economy

California’s economy is growing, but millions of workers are being left behind. The state can do more to ensure every Californian has access to a family-sustaining career by incorporating workforce standards into public spending and regulations. This factsheet describes workforce standards and how policymakers can apply them in this critical moment for climate and infrastructure spending.

October 19, 2023 -

Coral del Mar Murphy-Marcos

Anchoring the green economy in equity for workers and communities: A conversation with practitioner in residence Sam Appel

Labor Center 2023 Practitioner in Residence Sam Appel is urgently looking at how the transition to a sustainable and green economy can be anchored in equity for workers and communities in California.

Climate Action Plan and Workforce Needs Assessment

Press Coverage

April 17, 2024 -

Forbes

Bobby Kennedy And The Ownership Economy

A study by the UC Berkeley Labor Center found that even a year after closure, a quarter of the workers were still unemployed. Those that were employed earned a median of $12 less than their previous jobs.

February 21, 2024 -

Inside Climate News

California’s Oil Country Hopes Carbon Management Will Provide Jobs. It May Be Disappointed

A 2023 study from the University of California Berkeley Labor Center found the majority of unionized oil workers laid off from a refinery in Northern California in 2020 were able to find new work — mostly in the petroleum industry — after the facility suddenly shuttered, but took pay cuts amounting to nearly a quarter of their previous salaries. Only 43 percent of their new jobs were unionized.

December 13, 2023 -

The Guardian

‘Quite a gap to close’: women ‘vastly underrepresented’ in green jobs sector

“These are traditionally male-dominated jobs, and so they’re subject to the same forces as the rest of the economy that make it hard for women to enter” and the best way to solve the problem is through apprenticeships, said Carol Zabin, a labor economist at the UC Berkeley Labor Center who has studied the solar industry.

December 4, 2023 -

Politico

Labor unions are still giving Democrats climate headaches

“We don’t really have a great plan for building high-quality, unionized jobs in the clean economy in the industrial sector,” said Sam Appel, a researcher at UC Berkeley’s Labor Center who wrote a report finding that around $13 billion out of $32 billion in state climate investments isn’t connected to workforce standards.

September 28, 2023 -

E&E News

‘Not a fan’: UAW workers give thumbs-down to Biden’s EV plan

“The core issue is how employers are deploying these new technologies in a way that explicitly weakens the union,” she said in an email. “All of the jobs in the supply chain, from lithium extraction and battery manufacturing all the way up to automotive assembly, could be union jobs.”—Jessie HF Hammerling, UC Berkeley Labor Center