Towards a green economy Box 1: Green jobs in the urban economy8

The process of making the world’s cities and urban fabric greener and maintaining them in a sustainable way will bring considerable employment opportunities. Upgrading to greener infrastructure generates jobs, whether by improving roads and buildings, establishing public transport networks, repairing and enhancing drainage and sewerage systems or creating and managing efficient recycling services. Many of these jobs will require knowledge of new technologies or working practices, for example, in constructing, installing and maintaining local hydrogen fuel-cell power stations or a network of charging points for electric vehicles. Providing training and support is fundamental to the process, within local authorities and for private companies, particularly small enterprises.

In creating the jobs that will enable cities to be greener, there is a great opportunity to address urban poverty, which is widespread (and in many places increasing at a faster rate than rural poverty), particularly in developing countries. Providing job opportunities where there are few is clearly important, but to make real inroads into poverty, employment must also encompass workers’ rights, their social protection and social dialogue. The

the environmental situation and has created jobs and income for local people (ILO Online 2007).

Fifth, many developed nations have also started looking at green construction as the largest possible employment provider. Germany’s 2006 retrofitting programme created nearly 150,000 additional full-time equivalent jobs in 2006 (UNEP et al. 2008). Retrofitting existing building stocks will provide a massive

City

New York London Mumbai São Paulo

Johannesburg Tokyo Berlin

Istanbul

Persons employed (operations) in public transport sector

78,393 24,975

164,043 15,326 22,276 15,036 12,885 9,500

Table 4: Urban transport employment Source: LSE Cities based on multiple sources, see Appendix 1

burgeoning international movement on “the right to the city” promotes community and consumers’ rights but workers’ rights are increasingly being recognized. Coalitions of urban workers in Brazil, for example, are helping to draw attention to and reduce informal, casualised labour. Inappropriate working and living conditions expose many urban workers to risk on a daily basis, while many do not have access to an adequate system of health care, pay for holidays and protection against loss of pay when they are unable to work. Several ILO initiatives provide a sound basis for action on improving social protection, and other efforts of communities to organise their own risk protection should be supported.

In Marikina, Philippines and through the municipal “decent work”

programmes of Belo Horizonte

and São Paulo, Brazil, progress has been made in improving labour conditions by establishing meaningful dialogue between workers, employers and local governments. In sum, the greening of cities can and should provide significant opportunities for decent employment, which can bring prosperity and, if carefully managed, reduce inequality and rural-urban differentials.

employment opportunity for many mature cities, since work is undertaken on site (see Buildings Chapter). Higher environmental standards for construction and fittings also create employment potential. The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that new standards for water heating and fluorescent lamps, among other products, could generate 120,000 jobs through to 2020 (UNEP et al. 2008). Most excitingly, green construction has also the potential of making buildings to go from being exclusively consumers of resources to becoming producers – in esources like water, energy, food and materials, or even green space.

Poverty reduction and social equity The World Development

Report (2009) describes

increasing economic density – one of the main features of a green city – as “a pathway out of poverty”. Along similar lines, Nadvi and Barrientos (2004) assess the impact of clusters or agglomeration effects on poverty in several urban areas of developing countries. It is observed that these clusters are labour-intensive, informal in nature and also employ a lot of women as household-workers. Based on a study of industrial clusters in Kumasi (Ghana),

8. This box was prepared based on contributions from ILO to this chapter. 470