The green economy action plan (w/ Nse Esema)

Speakers

Resources

The Green Economy Action Plan

Q&A

John Mandyck: How does the Green Economy Action Plan redefine what it means to be an architect? Have you envisioned how the profession is going to change? What new skills and services will be needed?

Nse Esema: We took a more macro view in the plan, so we didn’t quite dive all the way on some of these particular occupations. Just thinking more about sustainable building materials, I think will be like a really critical way that we need the field of architecture to change in order to be a real force multiplier for the green economy. The circular construction guidelines really goes into a lot of what that could look like in terms of different materials that we might consider, ways we might think about tracking metrics, and how to track proximity to our goals.

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John Mandyck: How does affordability or lack of affordability in New York City play into the new green economy?

Nse Esema: Part of why we are so focused on identifying workforce opportunities in the green economy that are accessible to a broad range of New Yorkers and that pay family sustaining wages is in part because we’re keenly aware of the household affordability issue.

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John Mandyck: Is the city considering new workforce pathways or apprenticeships of new jobs in some form?

Nse Esema: Yeah, absolutely. The city is very committed to increasing and scaling the number of apprenticeships. The analysis on these different occupations is informing everything from how New York City public schools are thinking about their career pathway programing, to the apprenticeship programs that the Mayor’s Office of Workforce and Talent is sort of spearheading and pushing forward.

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John Mandyck: Just building on that a little bit, what are the immediate best training needs for the green economy? What training programs do you think we need to scale first and fastest?

Nse Esema: There’s the plan, and then there’s a compendium that goes into much deeper depth on the workforce components and really digs into each of the focus occupations. One of the things that we do there is really map out what types of skills are needed for the roles that are growing in demand and core to the industry. I think it really depends on the role, but that’s a resource I can share with folks.

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John Mandyck: How does the Green Economy Action Plan incorporate environmental justice?

Nse Esema: Ensuring justice is part of how we’re thinking about the vision for the plan. We don’t want to just get to these 400,000 jobs without really thinking about the kind of values embedded in all of this. We want the green economy sector to be the anchor of a prosperous, equitable, and just future for New Yorkers. That’s really important. In the plan, we call out the importance of environmental justice communities and the roles that EJ leadership has played oftentimes in making way for a number of these green economy opportunities to really come to the fore.

John Mandyck: What’s the role of EJ groups in the green economy? How do you see yourself working with EJ groups as you develop the green economy?

Nse Esema: I think so much of the green economy is about place-based investments, and so given that environmental justice groups are often responding to kind of place-based injustices and realities, we want to work together in neighborhoods. We’re very mindful of the priorities of those EJ communities and the history of those communities. We’re trying to work together to figure out the best fit between whatever kind of green economy investment is proposed as in that place/neighborhood.

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John Mandyck: What do you see as the biggest overarching challenge to creating a green economy?

Nse Esema: There’s increasingly unlikely collaborations we need to see. Even just in regards to environmental justice groups, we really need to bring leadership from these groups to the table with financing partners who have the deep pockets to help advance their goals, and with industry experts who have the sort of sector specific experiences and nuance. I think figuring out that collaborative piece is big and important.

Also, 10-15 years ago we had a big green jobs hysteria that I think a lot of people would say didn’t actually translate to a lot of green jobs materializing. So making clear the ways in which this focus on the green economy is different from past attempts to build green jobs is important.

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John Mandyck: What are talking points to people in opposition to a greener economy?

Nse Esema: Part of why we really lift up the economic impacts that we see is because that feels often like something folks can connect to across political lines, something that folks can fundamentally really value. When we talk about the number of jobs that are created because of the green economy, when we talk about the fact that the green economy contributes about $30 billion to New York City’s economy, and by 2040 it will contribute nearly $90 billion, it’s pretty compelling when we think about what that can mean for the lives of everyday New Yorkers.

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John Mandyck: How would building material manufacturers ensure their products meet the low carbon requirements for your projects?

Nse Esema: First and foremost, we really just encourage folks to check out the circular construction guidelines because it lays a lot of this out. But we are really thinking about a suite of different operational practices that would need to be adopted. It starts fundamentally with just a metrics analysis of the composition. Alongside that comes a focus on material declarations, and being able to articulate that in order to inform the types of choices that we can make.

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John Mandyck: Got it. The unionized community has strong training programs, and sometimes the nonunion community doesn’t have access to training. Does the plan think about that imbalance or how the training might work out for union versus nonunion?

Nse Esema: We don’t get into specifics of the workforce actions. Many of those are in much earlier stages. We haven’t gotten into defining whether they’re union or nonunion opportunities. I think that there’s lots of room for consideration of both.

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John Mandyck: This is an audience of building professionals. What’s your hope for us as we think through the green economy? What do you want us to do to get to the green economy?

Nse Esema: One of the things that we haven’t talked too much about is how New York City is so well positioned with the Climate Mobilization Act, Local Law 97, and the ways in which we are creating policy infrastructure to support building decarbonization. I think my call to this very assorted group of building professionals is to think creatively and innovatively about the ways that we might connect the dots between the workforce, policy, and funding.