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How can we reach our 2020
Greenest City Targets?

How can we reach our 2020 Greenest City targets?

← GC 2020

Encourage diversity in the green economy and policy making

A 2009 UBC study suggests B.C. Liberal's stimulus plan was sexist. As reported in the Georgia Straight, the director of the UBC Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies, Gillian Creese, says she objects to casual references to “shovel-ready projects” in discussions about the economy. We need to be careful of this in greening projects as well.

In April 1998, the City of San Francisco became the first municipality, at least in North America, to adopt CEDAW (the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women). This has led at least seven of S.F.'s City Departments to analyze the gender impact of its services. See: http://wiki.cascadiagbc.org/wiki/index.php?title=San_Francisco:_First_Municipality_to_Adopt_CEDAW

Those at Smart Planet are looking into the upwards of $200 billion in the US Recovery and Reinvestment Act which has been dedicated to the creation of so-called “green jobs.” They point out that what IS NOT included in all that legislation are guidelines for how to layer various diversity and anti-discrimination laws in with those efforts. That’s why the Applied Research Center, a self-described think tank on “racial justice,” has created and published what is calling the “Green Equity Toolkit: Standards and Strategies for Advancing Race, Gender and Economic Equity in the Green Economy.” (Talk about an all-inclusive title!) See: http://www.arc.org/content/view/1139/136/

All of us need to be involved in sustainability. Let's make that a priority.

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  • Kira Gerwing commented  ·   ·  Report

    The target is to double the number of green jobs in Vancouver by 2020 - how many of those are jobs for people with barriers to employment as compared to highly skilled or specialised jobs? How many of those jobs are for local residents of Vancouver as compared to people 'imported' to Vancouver because of the green skill set? The strategies to achieve the target should integrate the objective for maximising the diversity of green jobs delivered in the city so the benefits get distributed regardless of income, gender, race, etc.

  • Jessica Woolliams commented  ·   ·  Report

    Thanks Nina. A nurse or a teacher or a child-care worker's job can be a green job if they do that job in a green building and with adherence sustainable principles in mind. Too many times, the language around green jobs focuses exclusively on male-dominated industries and high tech solutions. Green technology can include low-tech products used in gardening or the beauty or hair care industries or health care (large and important sectors of the economy). It should not just include high tech products used in industries traditionally dominated by men, which many feminists have been concerned can happen with these greening projects. These articles say it better than I could: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4194/green_jobs_for_whom/

  • Nina Shoroplova commented  ·   ·  Report

    This is an important idea. I would appreciate reading an example of what gender diversity would look like in greening Vancouver.

GC 2020: Create green jobs

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