Learn more about JFF
Learn more about JFF

Exploring Regional Dynamics

Training organizations work hard to set their communities up for success so they can take full advantage of the economic opportunities presented by green initiatives. Staff want to make sure their students can connect to jobs—but most important, to jobs that will enable them to stay in their communities and thrive.

The training content and design drivers that we have discussed may be similar across the programs we included in our interviews, but those insights become further nuanced when you layer on specific regional dynamics.

The following sections consider some of those regional nuances using classifications from JFF’s Nationwide Risk and Readiness Tool, which categorizes regions as either Critical, Exposed, Early, or Primed based on how susceptible they are to negative impacts of climate change, their level of social vulnerability—which we assessed based on factors such as access to affordable housing and rates of poverty, food insecurity, and unemployment, and how well prepared they are, in terms of their political landscape and local labor market, to invest in and grow green industries and a green workforce.1 

Note: While these designations are helpful in identifying patterns and best practices, they are not the way that these organizations or regions self-identify. By including these examples, we hope to encourage organizations working in similar conditions by sharing best practices and common struggles.  

Want to find out what category your region aligns to? Click here.

Critical

Critical regions are relatively well prepared to take action but face severe risks in terms of climate patterns and social vulnerability. Communities in these regions may be eager to take significant action to bolster economic and environmental resilience through the continued emergence of green jobs and development of green infrastructure.  

Critical
Training Practitioners’ Perspectives
We need to be in constant dialogue with employers. Our mission isn’t just to train people; it is to make sure employers want to hire them… not just posting a job and hoping for the best.
Matt Sheehan
Director, Center of Career and Technical Excellence, Broome-Tioga BOCES
We want everyone to see that there is a place for them in the green economy because all jobs are going to be climate jobs at some point in some way or impacted in some way by climate.
Ryan Mattingly
Executive Director, Louisiana Green Corps
We are always looking at ways to build wealth locally and reverse this trend of extraction, which is how we grew up—work leaving our communities.
Molly Hemstreet
Cofounder and Co-Executive Director, Industrial Commons

Exposed

Exposed regions face severe risks and might be unprepared to take action. Communities in these regions may rely on nonprofit organizations or institutions of higher learning to share insights about how to best increase readiness in the face of high risk. There’s an urgent need for leaders to work collaboratively to promote environmental and economic resilience. The two organizations in these regions address that need through relationship-building efforts to strengthen dialogue and promote trust. 

Exposed
Training Practitioners’ Perspectives
There is this general distrust of people coming in saying, ‘I have this new technology and you are going to love it.’ I don't ever advocate us doing that because I want whatever it is that we do to be built within the community first... because if we are going to be giving them these resources, I want them to have the ability to use it, to capitalize off it, and to be enriched by it instead of being dependent on somebody else.
Zak Konakis
Regional Pathways Coordinator, Utah State University
Look for somebody who is already doing the work and join them.
Tracy Wallace
Founder and Executive Director, Green Careers Texas

Early

Early regions do not currently face severe risks, but the combination of a lack of green jobs and green skills and an unsupportive political landscape suggests the need to build the foundations, infrastructure, and partnerships to respond to potential future risks. The training practitioners we interviewed at organizations in Early regions said it is important to broaden the community’s understanding of what the term “green jobs” means and raise awareness of the impact these jobs can have on the local economy.

Early
Training Practitioners’ Perspectives
Things are moving, but not fast enough or in the most effective direction. Every state needs a workforce facilitator focused on emerging technologies to connect fragmented efforts and build a contiguous path from awareness to careers—because every state is different.
April Ambrose
Director of Workforce Development, Arkansas Advanced Energy Foundation
Rather than create new training programs specific to clean energy, it makes more sense to integrate with existing training for similar skill sets. This approach helps demonstrate that workforce development efforts can be multifaceted; we can concurrently train for multiple occupations in thoughtful, efficient ways that keep both the learner and the industry in mind.
Eric Hill
CEO, Youth Workforce Development Foundation

Primed

Primed regions face less risk than others but are nevertheless relatively well prepared to take action. Communities in these regions may not have as much need to navigate the extreme weather impacts or the deep social vulnerability challenges of a changing climate, but they have made significant progress in expanding access to green jobs and have strong political support to continue building an emerging green economy.  

Primed
Training Practitioners’ Perspectives
Being part of sector partnerships allows our senior level staff to connect with other leaders in those fields, while our case managers and program managers can build relationships at the hiring manager level. This is important because the hiring managers can aid in pulling forward candidates applications and work with the SJI frontline staff to ensure current skill needs are called out in the candidates’ resumes.
Kevin Osborn
Kevin Osborn, Interim Executive Director, Seattle Jobs Initiative
Electrified vehicles... really, there’s three sectors to that: There’s the people that build electronic vehicles, there’s the people that service them, and the people that charge them. But nobody had curriculum for that, so our job was to try to find where those curriculums existed and either acquire them or find funding to develop them further to get them scaled out into community colleges.
Dennis Bona
Michigan Workforce Training and Education Collaborative

Endnotes

  1. For more on the data indicators used in this analysis see Our Approach to developing the National Risk and Readiness Tool.