by Anjuli Munjal

As the Training Manager for a pre-apprenticeship training program at Nontraditional Employment for Women, I am always looking for pathways to green jobs. But, multiple years after we first heard the term, “green job” continues to be an enigma. Does a green job have to be new? Does it have to be funded by stimulus money? Are all jobs that work with landscaping green? While the phrase has created a great deal of enthusiasm, it can definitely use a healthy dose of clarity and approachability.

At last week’s Good Jobs Green Jobs conference in Philadelphia, Ellen Honigstock of Urban Green Council helped provide this clarity by facilitating a panel discussion with leaders and instructors from three New York City building trade unions.

Ellen introduced the panelists as “the GPRO Dream Team.” Their organizations, along with other knowledgeable trade professionals, helped develop the curriculum and classroom materials for GPRO, Urban Green Council’s national green building program. By contributing to GPRO, unions are demonstrating leadership in the green building industry– and making buildings more sustainable by training their members.

The panelists, each representing a different trade, spoke about their union’s integration of sustainability training and how it applies to their members’ jobs. Bob Muldoon, Director of the Green Building Initiative for the Local 32BJ Thomas Shortman Training Fund, explained the 1000 Green Supers program, in which over 1,500 NYC building supervisors participated in training about efficient building operations. John Sullivan, of U.A. Plumbers Local 1, brought up the valuable point that the plumbers’ curriculum has always taken efficiency and sanitation into consideration, which are some of the key areas of focus for efficient water systems in green buildings. He explained that Local 1’s apprenticeship program offers training for jobs in solar thermal systems and stormwater management and prepares their plumbers to keep up with market demand. Michael Yee, Director of the Educational and Cultural Trust Fund at Local 3 Electricians, mentioned that Local 3 provides classes for their electricians in renewable energy, such as solar panel installation and Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE). He also outlined plans for a LEED- certified training center that will break ground within the year. Howard Styles, Training Director of the IUOE NYC Local 94 Union of Operating Engineers, was unable to attend the panel but Ellen presented some of the green courses they are currently offering.

These plumbers, electricians, and building supers are some of the building trades that have incorporated GPRO into their curriculum. Each panelist reported a similar goal for their training program, which is to ensure that green work practices and concepts are covered before their members move on to more complex coursework. GPRO’s prerequisite course, Fundamentals of Building Green, teaches basic knowledge about sustainability and green building systems, while the higher level trade-specific GPRO courses focus on green practices critical to each trade. The GPRO curriculum stresses the “whole building approach,” making the material relevant to anyone working in the building trades. GPRO also prepares experienced tradespeople to take advanced green training courses in a variety of specialties including Solar PV and Solar Thermal Installation, Building Operator Certification (BOC), or BPI Energy Efficient Building Operator Certification.

John Sullivan pointed out that plumbers trained in solar thermal panel installation have more background and experience to do a quality job because of their foundation, safety perspective and troubleshooting experience than someone trained only in the installation itself. So, if you are looking for green jobs that will become a career, you may not need to look any further than the established union apprenticeship training programs in New York.

Using the GPRO curriculum as a baseline for working within green buildings is helping to provide more definition to the term “green job.” A green job is not what the work is, but how you do it. Plumbing and electrical work and facilities maintenance are all green jobs, when the approach is responsible in terms of resource use and efficient operations.

Urban Green Council is a proud supporter of the Good Jobs, Green Jobs Eastern Conference being held in Philadelphia on April 3^rd and 4^th.

I will have the honor of moderating a panel discussion entitled Building Trade Unions Take a Leadership Role in Green Training. The speakers are part of the GPRO dream team – the union leaders who helped us develop and implement GPRO, our green professional building skills training program. Included on the panel will be:

• Howard Styles, Training Director, I.U.O.E Local 94 Operating Engineers NYC
• Bob Muldoon, the Director of the Green Building Initiative for the Local 32BJ Training Fund, 1000 Supers program
• John Sullivan, U.A. Plumbers Local Union No.1 Trade Education Fund
• Michael Yee, Director of the Educational and Cultural Trust Fund of the Electrical Industry, Local 3 Electricians

The theory behind GPRO is that green buildings will only perform as designed if the people who build, renovate, operate and maintain those buildings have a thorough working knowledge of green practices.

We are gratified to work with the labor unions who are taking a leadership role in accelerating the construction industry’s transition to green building by providing trained workers and collaborating with environmental groups to create comprehensive green worker training.

This panel will address labor unions’ critical role in transforming the green building workforce and how labor unions and Urban Green Council successfully collaborated to create GPRO, a national green building certificate program for contractors, trades, operators and building service workers.

Please let us know if you will be attending the conference. This will be a chance for all of us to meet with community leaders, union members, environmentalists, business leaders and elected officials together to discuss how our region is, city by city and block by block, building the foundation for a green economy.

Photo Credit: US Army Corps of Engineers

A question for all you design professionals out there: When was the last time a project you designed was built exactly as shown on your drawings?

The answer, I imagine is “never.”

There’s a myth outside of the construction industry that the architectural team hands over a giant set of blueprints and specifications to the contractor and then a team of construction workers execute those plans with nary a glitch. The misconception is that the construction team “just follows plans” when in fact there is a very entrenched but varying culture on construction sites that determines how workers behave and how projects gets built.

To improve the performance of our buildings, much higher levels of coordination is required between the construction, design and operations teams as well as among the trades working on the project. To build green, it’s critical to get all of these individuals on the same page and change the culture of the job site to include sustainable work practices.

To help the construction industry teach the workforce about sustainability and green work practices, Urban Green Council developed GPRO, a national training program to teach the people who build, renovate and maintain buildings the principles of sustainability combined with trade-specific green construction knowledge.

We’d like to share an excerpt from Trades Going Green in the January 2012 issue of GreenSource magazine. Bruce Buckley features GPRO prominently as he writes about the importance of training and collaboration when building sustainable buildings.

“Changing the culture is an important first step in training trade contractors to think green, says Steve Lehtonen, senior director of environmental education with the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO). “The most important thing to me is the psychology of what we’re doing,” says Lehtonen, who runs IAPMO’s Green Plumbers training program. “We want them to buy into green practices.”

Green Roofs for Healthy Cities (GRHC) launched its Green Roof Professional (GRP) designation program to improve the delivery of green roofs. Jordan Richie, manager of education and accreditation at GRHC, says the program sees a mix of designers and contractors in roofing and landscaping. “We want to stress a collaborative design and installation approach to any green roof,”

Knowledge of green systems and techniques should be a skill set that all contractors have, not one reserved for accredited professionals, says Mike Callanan, executive director of the National Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee (NJATC) of the National Electrical Contractors Association and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.“

The takeaway is that properly trained construction teams who understand green work practices and concepts will build better, higher-performing buildings. As we bring GPRO nationwide, it is our goal to make all buildings be greener as workers become trained in green practices and behavioral norms change.

We are proud to announce that Urban Green Council has issued its 1,000^th GPRO Certificate!

In the 11 months since we launched our first public class, we have trained or are in the process of training over 1,700 candidates in five different construction modules. We wanted you to hear from our Certificate Holders directly, so we invited a student from each GPRO module to tell us how GPRO has impacted the way they work.

Loretta Tapia, GPRO: FUND

NYC Cool Roofs Site Supervisor, Community Environmental Center, New York, NY

I look at buildings differently. I better understand the relationships between building systems and their effect on the environment. My job involves painting cool roofs and concentrates on the urban heat island effect, reducing carbon emissions and air pollution while increasing energy efficiency within the building. We are still learning the effects of cooling roofs and how they prolong the life of vents and machinery on the roof. I often have in depth conversations with building supers, while inspecting their roofs, which include benchmarking, lighting efficiency, weatherizing, and updating boilers and air conditioners. GPRO has given me a good foundation to build upon in understanding how important it is to do this work and continue to learn and educate others about sustainability.

Ty Stranger-Thorson, GPRO: CM

Area Manager, The Garland Company, Magnolia, TX

The actual way I work has not changed much, but the hard hat stickers and my GPRO credential listed on my LinkedIn page have both raised some questions from colleagues and clients alike regarding my GPRO certificate. This has started dialogue regarding green construction and practice, from the designers to the installers.

The more we are able to spread the word about these types of programs the easier it will be to have our buildings constructed by workers that understand and implement green building practices.

Isaiah Matos, GPRO: O&M

Assistant Resident Manager, Douglas Elliman, New York, NY

The GPRO courses changed various aspects of my life, both professionally and personally. GPRO illuminated a new way of thinking when performing at work on a daily basis. Simple things from the types of products that I purchase for the buildings to the way I manage construction and renovations have all changed. GPRO introduced me to integrated design and thinking, so making simple decisions like changing lamps may have inverse cost effects on the HVAC system, which is something I never considered before. Water conservation can reduce energy use by simply not having to heat and transport as much water as before the reduction. The integrated systems approach has changed the way I make every decision.

GPRO also introduced me to the USGBC and the LEED rating system. The influence of some of the lecturers inspired me to move further into the green building industry and pursue LEED accreditation. As of now I am a LEED Green Associate and I am studying for my LEED AP in Building Operations & Maintenance, which I hope to have before new year 2012.

Bob Hattier, GPRO: EL

NABCEP Certified PV Installer, IBEW Local 134 Chicago, Chicago, IL

GPRO addresses the disconnect that has long plagued green building. Now with trade level certification there can be a true integrated design and construction process. In my work I have a new understanding of the other trades’ approaches and strategies used in efficient building, and it fosters communication between us. I look forward to the day when many more are trained and green building is the norm.

Carl Gambino, GPRO: PL

Journeyman Plumber & Instructor, U.A. Local 1 NYC Plumbers Union

The day after the Fundamentals class, when I went back to my job at Tower 1 at the World Trade Center (the project is working towards LEED Gold certification), I looked around and was able to understand so much more about what was being built and why I was being asked to change the way we worked. I also noticed how other trades were contributing to the green building design.

Interested in taking a GPRO course? Our delivery partners in Upstate NY and LaGuardia Community College are both holding public sessions this winter.

On November 14th, 2011, the NYC Department of Buildings launched phase two of the Sustainable Contractor Designation Program to include NYC licensed plumbers and electricians, in addition to General Contractors for 1-, 2- and 3-family homes. This initiative identifies trade licensees who demonstrate knowledge in sustainable practices through third-party certifications and agree to promote the use of green technologies to their customers. Those licensees that the Department identifies as sustainable will have an icon in the shape of a green leaf displayed next to their names in the Department’s Buildings Information System (BISWeb). Learn more about this program here.

This is great news for GPRO! In addition to GPRO: Construction Management, now GPRO: Plumbing and GPRO: Electrical Systems have been named as one of the acceptable credentials for the Sustainable Contractor Designation Program.

GPRO: Green Professional Building Skills Training is a series of courses and certificate exams that teach the people who build, renovate, and maintain buildings the principles of sustainability combined with trade-specific green construction knowledge.

By Ellen Honigstock
Ellen is the Director of Construction Education at Urban Green Council, and runs GPRO: Green Professional Building Skills Training. GPRO is a series of courses and certificate exams that teach the people who build, renovate, and maintain buildings the principles of sustainability combined with trade-specific green construction knowledge.

Here at Urban Green Council we LOVE data! At Greenbuild last month Harvey Bernstein, VP of Industry Insights and Alliances at McGraw-Hill Construction, released a new study on the Workforce and Green Jobs.

The upshot is that in construction, green jobs are growing at a faster rate than non-green jobs. Green training is considered valuable to contractors, trades and A/E professionals and is becoming more widespread throughout the industry.

How big is this industry anyway? Globally, construction in 2011 is projected to be a $7.2 trillion industry, representing 11% of global GDP. In 2020 this is expected to rise to $12 trillion (13.2% global GDP), mostly in emerging countries. Projections for the next 9 years are for growth in single family homes and commercial construction but flat for institutional projects. As we all know too well, construction and design jobs in the U.S. have been generally declining since 2008, but the good news is that green construction has been rising as a segment of the market. This year, green jobs make up more than 1/3 of jobs in the A/E and contractor communities.

Is there a shortage of green-qualified construction workers? 69% of AEC firms expect work force shortages of qualified construction workers during the next decade. The MH survey tried to determine the reasons why. Major reasons cited are:

• Lack of interest in the construction industry among high school students because its perceived as not being high-tech enough
• Retirement of senior staff
• People leaving the workforce during the downturn and concern that they won’t return
• Licensed trades (MEPS) expect the worst shortages. Contractors expect shortages in carpentry, millwork, electricians, concrete/cement workers, HVAC workers and boilermakers

What does green really mean?: The survey asked what “green” meant to each individual. Top responses included: energy use reduction, reduction of use of natural resources, and installation of renewable energy (this response was higher for trades).

Is specialty knowledge valued? Formal training is prized by the trades and by decision makers. 80% of trades surveyed said that unions and associations were highly valued sources of training for trades. Happily we seem to be moving towards higher levels of teamwork in the industry – the survey reported that General Contractors are looking to improve their collaboration skills and value employees who are proficient with technology and have good people management skills. From the perspective of A/E firms, GC’s and subcontractors, certified employees help them win projects and increase competitiveness across the board.

What are the benefits of green training as seen by those in the industry?

• More job opportunities: Training is key to getting and maintaining better jobs. 30% of green job workers said they needed major training when they started, and most reported that formal education and training programs will continue to be needed. 71% of hiring decision-makers believe that having green skills increases an individual’s competitiveness

• Higher compensation:
  • 58% of the entire survey estimated a 4% higher salary for green skilled workers;
  • 38% of trade contractors said they valued green skills at 7% or higher salary;
  • 14% of AE firms said they valued green skills at a 10% or higher salary

• More job security and opportunities for advancement. Trades (carpenters, HVAC/boilermakers, electricians, concrete/cement masons and plumbers) are expected to see the greatest growth in green jobs. The survey found 15% of trade jobs today are considered green jobs, and this is expected to increase to 25% in three years.

• Outside sources of training are surpassing on-the-job training for green skills. The number of people who responded that they can get training on the job was lower as compared to those who stated a need for outside sources of training as more specialization and technology takes effect – this response rate was similar for trades and AE professionals.

How many green jobs are out there? One oddity of this survey is how it defined “green jobs”: Green construction or installation job in building construction involving installation of a uniquely green system or requiring different skills to meet green goals. This definition does NOT include administrative or non-construction professions such as manufacturing or producing green products. Hmm…and I thought I had a green job.

• Of the design professionals surveyed: there was a steep increase in those that stated that more than 50% of their projects are green. The rate of increase is less steep for GC’s but still climbing.
• Of the responses from the unemployed (mostly architects): 17% are seeking an exclusively green job, 60% are seeking a green job and 31% said they were not as interested in non-green jobs.

Photo credit: Linh Do

Up until now, GPRO has only been offered to large employers and unions. LaGuardia Community College is pleased to make this innovative training available to the broader New York community. GPRO’s curriculum empowers individuals not only with green building knowledge but also with an understanding of what their own role is within a project. For employers, GPRO closes the gap on green building knowledge in a way that all their employees can understand.

For more information see here or call (718) 663-8403.

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LaGuardia Community College located in Long Island City, Queens, was founded in 1971 as a bold experiment in opening the doors of higher education to all, and we proudly carry forward that legacy today. Part of the City University of New York (CUNY), LaGuardia is a nationally recognized leader among community colleges for boundary-breaking success educating underserved students. Visit www.laguardia.edu to learn more.

Brian Wennersten, LEED BD+C, O+M, GPRO:CM is an Instructor and Principal of SKYed Eco Education & Consulting, and a certified GPRO Instructor. The following is derived from an interview with Anthony Brower, LEED AP BD+C, ID+C, Sustainable Design Director at Gensler.

GPRO continues to expand its reach in teaching green building practices to those working in the construction field with its recent release of GPRO Electrical Systems course.

Local Union 3, I.B.E.W NYC, longstanding supporters of GPRO, will continue their commitment to green building practices by teaching GPRO Electrical Systems and Operations & Maintenance Essentials to their apprentices and journeymen this fall. Topics will include: fundamentals of green building and sustainability in electrical systems, lighting, heating and cooling, renewable energy, green job management and other work practices that will assure high building performance.

The electricians union will also soon begin construction on their new Electrical Industry Training Center (EITC) building in Long Island City, which is aiming for LEED certification. The space will provide an innovative and technologically advanced learning environment for union members to continue their professional development. In addition to GPRO courses, Local 3 will offer hands-on training for solar and wind power at their custom designed training installation on the roof of the new building.

Local 3 electricians joined in the integrated design process with the architects at Gensler which enabled the team to provide a more holistic approach to the project. We had the opportunity to speak with Anthony Brower, Sustainable Design Director at Gensler. Mr. Brower said that from an electrician’s perspective, reducing energy consumption was at the forefront in the design of the building. He noted that the training center will allow end users to learn about the latest technology in Advanced Lighting Control systems as well as benefitting from improved indoor environmental quality. With all of these energy efficient features, GPRO students will not only be able to learn in an amazing setting, but they will be taught by example from how the building was designed and constructed while continuing to meet the increased demands to train electrical professions in energy efficient technologies.

Public GPRO courses are now available in New York (NYC, Upstate and Long Island), New Jersey, Colorado, Illinois and Texas; our complete course schedule is here.

If you don’t see a class listed in your area please contact us to see if courses are being planned. We can arrange private classes for groups of 12 or more.