Standardization of Green Jobs Classification across Los Angeles City Departments

The Challenge

Encouraging more green jobs is critical to successfully implementing the sustainability solutions, and being able to measure the growth of green jobs across Los Angeles and beyond is meaningful for many reasons. As one of the three E's of sustainability along with the environment and ethics, a thriving economy is an essential part of a sustainable future for the City of Los Angeles. Not to mention, transitioning to a green economy requires a trained workforce in industries such as environment, energy, transportation, and planning. 
In this project, Chambeshi assisted research associated with the legal implications of the City of Los Angeles’ newly launched Low-Income Car-Share Project. Specifically, he complied and assessed the green job creation data and benefits and initiated the standardizing process of green job classification across city departments to help measure the growth of green jobs. Additionally, he helped revise greenhouse gas emission standards for the California Cap-N-Trade program to allow entities to accurately measure the amounts of emissions.   

RESULTS

• The project allowed the City of Los Angeles to measure the amount of sustainability-oriented, green jobs being created, which is relevant for the economy and the city’s sustainability aims. 
• Since the initial release of the Sustainable City pLAn in 2015 – more than 20,000 green jobs were created while reducing the gap between the City and the County’s unemployment rates, demonstrating that sustainability and prosperity go hand-in-hand. 

DELIVERABLE AND IMPACT

Chambeshi assembled sustainable job development data for the 2nd Annual Report of the Sustainable City pLAn, published in 2017. Direct impacts include the City of Los Angeles and L.A. County being able to quantify the number of green jobs. The effective standardization of green jobs also help identifies which departments or organizations are prioritizing sustainability in their work and allows the City of Los Angeles to direct incentives to those departments or organizations. Hence, it will be especially useful when developing future sustainability reports and determining the impact of these jobs for both the economy and for Mayor Garcetti’s goal to make Los Angeles a sustainable city.