Context:
Before attempting to understand the immense benefits that green product development and manufacturing can afford both New York City’s economy and its environment – it is important to appreciate the current conditions of New York City’s manufacturing sector and the challenges at hand.
As illustrated in the graph to the left, NYC’s manufacturing sector accounts for a “large but declining share of employment,” (NYC Industrial Policy). Manufacturing jobs in the industrial economy of the 1940s were abundant, reaching over one million in 1942. However, the conversion from an industrial economy to a postindustrial economy has “come at the expense of high-paying working class jobs,” according to the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding in New York City, Daniel L. Doctoroff. The next relevant question to pose seems to be, ‘who will be affected by this rapid decline,’ or in other words, ‘whose jobs are at stake?’ Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s 2005 plan, Protecting and Growing New York City’s Industrial Job Base observes “the sector provides employment to a significant number of residents with lower skill levels. Of City residents with no more than a high school diploma, 30 percent are employed in the industrial sector, accounting for more than 58 percent of sector’s employment base,” (NYC Industrial Policy).
In the absence of local manufacturing, many of these workers would be unemployed – having a huge impact on the economic stability of New York City’s working class families and communities. These struggling communities are the ones in most dire need of the economic revitalization that green jobs can provide. The national organization Green For All touts its mission as “working to build an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty.” We would like to explore this objective in terms of green manufacturing and product development, considering how the reform of this sector can “bring needed dollars and jobs to struggling regions that have lost manufacturing jobs but that still have usable manufacturing facilities and a well-trained workforce,” (Cha, 17).
Having established New York City’s historically hearty manufacturing sector, it is important to keep in mind that despite its decline, “the city still boasts a surprisingly robust manufacturing sector, with about 7,000 manufacturing firms employing over 100,000 workers,” (Cha, 18). According to the Center for American Progress, “Increasing investment in green manufacturing in NYC would not only bring needed jobs but also decrease greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the distance between manufactured goods and their consumption in America’s largest city,” (Cha, 18), Before diving into the specifics of green product development and manufacturing, it is important to once more attempt to define the elusive term “green jobs” as they relate to the manufacturing industry. According to NACFAM’s Roadmap for Progressively Greener Solutions through a Sustainable and Green Workforce, “green Jobs in manufacturing are jobs that contribute to substantially to preserving or restoring environmental quality,” (Mittlestadt, 6). With this definition in mind, we can explore this objective in several capacities. The Center for American Progress identifies five major subsectors of NYC’s green product development and manufacturing sector.
The five subsectors of green product development and manufacturing
Environmentally Conscious Manufacturing
Having established the major subsectors of Green Product Development and Manufacturing, it is appropriate to explore environmentally conscious manufacturing processes in greater detail in order to understand how these important conventions can be implemented on a larger scale. “Environmentally conscious manufacturing involves producing products such that their overall negative environmental effects are minimized” (Gungor et. al.). This endeavor rests on two key considerations:
1.) Understanding the life cycle of a product and its environmental impact at each stage
2.) Foresight during product’s design and manufacturing to ensure environmental attributes of the product and manufacturing processes are kept at a desired level (Gungor et. al.)
This figure illustrates the necessities of environmentally conscious manufacturing. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of a product is necessary in order to determine Design for the Environment (DFE). “If we fully understand the life cycle of the product, we can then transfer this information onto the actual development of the product (which addresses the second issue of ECM)” (Gungor et. al.). Additionally, understanding the end-of-life stage of a product is critical since the largest impact on the environment occurs during this stage (Gungor et. al.)
Who will do the work?
This figure depicts the interactions among the responsible parties (government, users, producers, and distributors) on environmental issues (Fleischman et. al.)
Green Job Potential:
“The potential growth in Green Jobs is significant in that it could be the fastest growing segment of the United States economy over the next several decades and dramatically increase its share of total employment”
• Current count of 750,000 green jobs, which amounts to less than one half of a percent of the total current jobs in the U.S. economy (United States Cong.)
• 4.2 million Green Jobs (as projected) would be more than five times the current green job count and provide as much as 10% of new job growth over the next 30 years (United States Cong.)
Reuse, Recycling and Green Manufacturing Job Descriptions:
A Global Perspective
“Climate change policy is not a simple choice between a high-growth, high-carbon world and a low-growth, low-carbon world – a simple question of whether to grow or to preserve the planet. Plant of inefficiencies drive today’s high carbon intensity. Existing technologies and best practices could reduce energy consumption in industry and the power sector by 20-30 percent, shrinking carbon footprints without sacrificing growth.”
Though the primary focus of this project is achieving a ‘green economy’ in New York City, we would be remiss to ignore the global framework of this objective. One valuable source that explores the relationships and varying responsibilities of global cities is the World Development Report. Keeping industrial development in mind we will focus primarily on the section of the 2010 report entitled “Energizing Development without Compromising the Climate.” The WDR sets fourth a single concrete necessity that we need keep in mind in order to understand global recommendations:
“Limit warming to not much more than two degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures” (World Development Report 2010, 9)
With this necessity in mind, we can examine two necessary premises in achieving this end. Firstly “global emissions must peak no later than 2020, then decline by 50-80 percent from current levels by 2050, with perhaps even negative emissions required toward 2100” (World Development Report 2010, 11). And secondly “Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere must stabilize at no more than 450 parts per million (ppm). Current concentrations are already at 387 ppm and rising at about 2 ppm a year” (World Development Report 2010, 9).
Attaining sustainable development and prosperity rests on two necessary premises represented in this diagram as blue and orange arrows. The first is that “high income countries significantly reduce their emissions – and their emissions per capita” (blue arrows). The second necessary premise is that developing countries avoid “the carbon-intensive path followed by developed countries such as Australia or the United States” (orange arrows) (World Development Report 2010, 9).
The necessity for developing countries to avoid the mistakes made by developed countries is a lofty goal and will not be achieved without considerable revision of current climate policies and habits on the part of established countries and cities, such as New York, who serve as an example to others. In his article “Building a Green Economy” economist Paul Krugman observes “If the US and Europe decide to move on climate policy they almost certainly would be able to cajole and chivvy the rest of the world into joining the effort. We can do this.”
Works Cited
Anderson, Ray. 7 Fronts of Sustainability. Digital image. InterfaceFlor. FLOR. Web. 6 Apr. 2010. <http://www.interfaceglobal.com/Sustainability/Our-Journey/7-Fronts-of-Sustainability.aspx>.
Baker, Brent. “Tristate Biodiesel.” Sustainability. Tristate Biodiesel. Web. 30 Apr. 2010. http://www.tristatebiodiesel.com/
Cha, J. Mijin, and Jack Dafoe. New York City Green-Collar Jobs Roadmap. Rep. Center for American Progress & Urban Agenda, Oct. 2009. Web. 6 Apr. 2010.
Fleischmann, M., and J.M. Boemhof-Ruwaard. “Quantitative Models for Reverse Logistics: A Review.” European Journal of Operational Research 103 (1997): 1-17. Science Direct. Web. 7 May 2010.
Gungor, Askiner, and Surendra M. Gupta. “Issues in Environmentally Conscious Manufacturing and Product Recovery: a Survey.” Computers & Industrial Engineering 36.4: 811-53. Science Direct. Web. 7 May 2010.
Mittelstadt, Jeffrey. Green Jobs in Manufacturing: A Roadmap for Progressively Greener Solutions through a Sustainable and Green Workforce. Rep. National Council For Advanced Manufacturing, NACFAM, 23 Dec. 2008. Web. 6 Apr. 2010. <http://www.nacfam.org/Portals/0/Sustainable%20Manufacturing/NACFAMGreenJobs_12.23.08.pdf>.
New York City Industrial Policy: Protecting and Growing New York City’s Industrial Job Base. Rep. The Mayor’s Office for Industrial Manufacturing Business, Jan. 2005. Web. 6 Apr. 2010. <http://www.nyc.gov/html/imb/downloads/pdf/whitepaper.pdf>.
New York City Manufacturing Jobs Since WWII. Digital image. Thirteen.org. New York State Department of Labor, 19 Mar. 2009. Web. 6 Apr. 2010. <http://www.thirteen.org/uncertainindustry/2009/03/19/nyc-manufacturing-in-decline/#more-3>.
United States. Cong. U.S. Metro Economies Current and Potential Green Jobs in the U.S. Economy. Cong. Bill. Washington, DC: United States Conference of Mayors, 2008. Print.
Index
