By Molly Ingram
June 2024
Over the past two decades, policy discussions about green jobs, clean economies and economic sustainability have increased dramatically, along with increased commercial demand for green goods and services and increased funding to support this economic transition. Developing a cleaner and more environmentally sustainable economy will generate new jobs, change the skills required of existing jobs, and reduce demand for other jobs. Governments, education institutions, businesses, community organizations and individuals will all need a better understanding of this changing industrial landscape to determine how to best take advantage of current and upcoming economic opportunities and meet their desired climate goals.
Minnesota has accelerated its climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts over the past few years. In 2019, Governor Tim Walz established the Climate Change Subcabinet and Governor's Advisory Council on Climate Change, bringing together government, business and community leaders. The Subcabinet released the state's Climate Action Framework in 2022 to guide Minnesota's approach to mitigate and adapt to a changing climate, along with a list of state-specific actions.
The framework has six main goal areas:
The framework also comes with some specific targets, including reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50% relative to the state's 2005 emissions by 2030, achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, and attaining 100% carbon-free electricity and 55% renewable electricity by 2040. In 2020, Minnesota emissions were down 23% from 2005 levels and approximately 30% of electricity was generated by renewable sources.
To support the Climate Action Framework goals, Minnesota is leveraging federal and private funding in addition to state funds. As of May 2024, the state of Minnesota has secured just shy of $3 billion for clean energy, resilience, and other climate-related investments from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) which were signed into law in 2021 and 2022, respectively. This accounts for approximately 40% of all IIJA and IRA funds secured by Minnesota as of May 2024.
One source of funding is the planning grant that the state of Minnesota received from the Inflation Reduction Act's Climate Pollution Reduction Grant (CRPG) program, administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This grant will support an update to the Climate Action Framework, as well as workforce analysis research by DEED's Labor Market Information office that contributes to the state's objective of completing "a clean economy workforce and economic development plan for the state that includes an assessment of future high-growth sectors and sectors at risk of job disruption, whether the jobs are inclusive of a diverse workforce, employers' workforce and skillset needs, and existing training resources, using an inclusive definition of clean jobs" (pg. 26).
Research is ongoing and the first full reports from the analysis won't be available until June 2025, but previews of the work will be shared in future Trends articles. This is the first article related to research supported by the CPRG to advance the Climate Action Framework goals. We begin by reviewing definitions of terms commonly used when discussing climate related topics and related statewide and regional employment measures.
There is no universal definition of the "green economy" or "green jobs", although there are some agreed upon components such as clean energy (however what employment counts as clean energy jobs can differ by institution or report). Because of the complex nature of transitioning to a clean economy, most reports focus on specific parts of the economy as opposed to the economy as a whole and thus define their area of focus on a case-by-case basis. Minnesota wants to take an inclusive approach to better understand the economy-wide impacts of climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts.
The following definitions serve as building blocks for Minnesota's ongoing work to create a clean economy workforce and economic development plan. Unless otherwise specified, definitions are from Minnesota's Climate Action Framework glossary and list of acronyms.
Adaptation: Taking action to prepare for and adjust to both the current and projected impacts from climate change. For both natural and built systems, humans may intervene to help adjustment.
Biofuel: A fuel produced from biomass. These include first-generation biofuels such as ethanol from corn sugars and biodiesel from soybean oil, second-generation biofuels from an array of source materials including lignocellulosic feedstocks and municipal solid waste, and any biofuels that may be developed in the future.
Biomass: 1. The mass of all living things. 2. Renewable material that comes from plants or animals. This organic material can be used as fuel to produce electricity or heat. Examples are wood, energy crops, and waste from forests, yards or farms.
Carbon-free Electricity: Electricity generation that either does not use fossil fuels or does not emit carbon. Examples include wind, solar and nuclear.
Carbon-neutral: Achieving net-zero carbon dioxide emissions at a global scale through the balance of residual carbon dioxide emissions with the same amount of carbon dioxide removal.
Carbon Sequestration (biological): The process by which atmospheric carbon dioxide is taken up by trees, grasses, and other plants through photosynthesis and stored as carbon in biomass (trunks, branches, foliage, and roots) and soils.
Clean Economy: An economy that is low-carbon and that produces goods and services with an environmental benefit.
Clean Energy: Energy generated from renewable or carbon-free sources, as well as energy saved through energy efficiency measures.
Climate-smart: Aiming to increase climate resiliency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Green: Contributing to preserving or restoring the environment.
Green jobs: Jobs related to preserving or restoring the environment.
Greenhouse Gas (GHG): Gases in the earth's atmosphere that trap heat, produced both naturally and through human activity. Excess GHG emissions cause climate change. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the primary GHG emitted through human activities, such as burning fossil fuels. Nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4) are also potent greenhouse gases emitted through human activities.
Low-carbon: Causing or resulting in only a relatively small net release of carbon dioxide or other GHG into the atmosphere.
Mitigation (of climate change): A human intervention to reduce emissions or enhance the removal of a GHG from the atmosphere (e.g., afforestation to increase carbon sequestration in plants).
Renewable Energy: Energy generated from resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale . Examples include wind, wood, solar, hydropower and geothermal energy.
Renewable Materials: Products that can be replenished or regenerated after use.
Resilience (to climate change): The capacity of individuals, communities, businesses, buildings, infrastructure or the natural environment to prevent, withstand, respond to and recover from disruptive events and continue to perform despite persistent stresses imposed by climate change. Both mitigation and adaptation are necessary for long-term resilience.
Reskilling: Learning a new skill to do a different job or training people to do a different job.
Upskilling: Improving existing skills or learning additional skills to better perform a current job.
Zero Waste: The conservation of all resources by means of responsible production, consumption, reuse and recovery of products, packaging and materials without burning and with no discharges to land, water or air that threaten the environment or human health.
Using the BLS definition of green jobs, Table 1 provides estimates of green employment in 2022 for all of Minnesota, the metro region, and Greater Minnesota. The estimates are generated using the GGS employment shares reported by the BLS for 2010 (in the second column). The share of green goods and services produced within an industry has likely increased since 2010, so these numbers should be thought of as a conservative estimate of green jobs in Minnesota.
In 2010, BLS found 3.1% of all Minnesota employment met their definition of green jobs. Government employment and private sector employment from seven industries had shares of green employment greater than the economy wide share. From largest to smallest green employment share, the seven industries with above average shares were:
| Table 1 Green Employment by Industry in 2022 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Industry | Green employment share | State Green Employment | Metro+ Green Employment | Greater MN+ Green Employment |
| Total Employment | 3.1% | 87,868 | 53,227 | 32,134 |
| Total Government | 4.3% | 16,011 | 8,571 | 7,385 |
| Total Private | 2.9% | 71,170 | 43,859 | 25,014 |
| Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting, private | 7.4% | 1,710 | 260 | 1,436 |
| Mining, private | 0.0% | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Utilities, private | 7.8% | 965 | 462 | 492 |
| Construction, private | 11.4% | 15,204 | 8,549 | 6,286 |
| Manufacturing, private | 6.0% | 19,578 | 10,559 | 8,957 |
| Wholesale Trade, private | 1.4% | 1,869 | 1,111 | 555 |
| Retail Trade, private | 0.7% | 2,090 | 1,142 | 933 |
| Transportation and Warehousing, private | 13.3% | 12,871 | 8,802 | 3,814 |
| Information, private | --* | - | - | - |
| Finance and Insurance, private | --* | - | - | - |
| Real Estate and Rental and Leasing, private | 0.0% | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services, private | 6.8% | 11,306 | 8,579 | 1,555 |
| Management of Companies and Enterprises, private | --* | - | - | - |
| Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services, private | 5.0% | 6,696 | 4,646 | 1,379 |
| Educational Services, private | --* | - | - | - |
| Health Care and Social Assistance, private | 0.0% | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation, private | --* | - | - | - |
| Accommodation and Food Services, private | 0.0% | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Other Services (except Public Administration), private | 1.4% | 1,242 | 766 | 444 |
| * Suppressed in BLS GGS data
+ Differences in green jobs by region are due to differences in total employment and industry shares, not difference in the share of green jobs, which BLS only provides at the national and state levels. Source: BLS Green Jobs and Minnesota Quarterly Census of Earnings and Wages |
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Using the energy employment data generated by the U.S. Department of Energy and the clean energy jobs categories reported by Clean Jobs America, Figure 1 reports jobs by energy sectors and Figure 2 reports clean energy jobs sector and by industry (e.g. construction, manufacturing). All numbers are for statewide employment in 2022. Clean energy jobs account for 49% of all energy jobs in Minnesota and are most prevalent in the construction and transportation industries, covering 79% and 72% of all industry energy jobs, respectively. Clean energy jobs are also well represented among wholesale trade and manufacturing energy specific employment, 42% and 37% respectively. The largest clean energy jobs sector is energy efficiency constituting 73% of all clean energy jobs in Minnesota. Energy efficiency is followed by power generation (15%), motor vehicles (7%), transmission, distribution, & storage (5%), and fuel production (1%). Download a detailed table of clean jobs in Minnesota.
In the U.S., and globally, climate-related concerns are changing how people work, whether that be through the creation of new jobs or by changing the processes or focus of existing jobs. Current discussions suggest that the demand for climate-related jobs and skills is growing, but information is not systematically available in a way that state, tribal and local governments or community organizations can easily use to inform their economic and workforce development efforts in regard to climate change mitigation and adaptation. Governments, businesses, community organizations, education institutions and individuals will need to weigh in on whether non-standardized definitions and intermittent collection of labor or economic data hamper their ability to meet their planning needs, and if so, how to address such challenges.
Over the next year, DEED's Labor Market Information office will compile and analyze existing climate and economic data to identify how Minnesota's economy and workforce has adapted to past climate change initiatives and technological shifts and to suggest how Minnesota can move forward to achieve its climate, economic and equity goals. As illustrated by the above tables, some industries, such as construction and transportation, play a large role in Minnesota's clean economy workforce, but the ongoing analysis seeks to improve our understanding for how climate action activities involve and impact Minnesota's economy and citizens beyond the currently defined clean or green industries and jobs. If you have questions related to Minnesota's economy, workforce, and climate change, feedback regarding what is or is not consider green/clean, or any other comments related to this topic, they can be sent to molly.ingram@state.mn.us.
