Allocate staff and resources to develop and implement local employment targets as requirements for new developments, including opportunities for key demographic groups (eg. low-income, new Canadians, etc.), funding for jobs training, supported employment, and social enterprise development.
Create a Local Employment Action Plan
Encouraging Vancouver businesses to emphasize the local market.
Ensure that green businesses in Vancouver emphasize local employment, local investment, increased local capacity and commitment, local spending in the local economy, and appropriate sustainable solutions to local challenges.
Actions for this strategy
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Staff and Resources
Pilot Projects
Pilot projects, including but not limited to pilots in areas of weatherization, building deconstruction, other ‘pre-trades’ such as carpentry for renovations, urban farming and compost collection. This pilots would be delivered in conjunction with other Greenest City working groups.
Development Team
Establish a local employment development team, with expertise in pre-procurement and procurement, business development (from seed and start-up stages through to growth and maturity stages for a variety of businesses, including green enterprises, in partnership with other public agencies and businesses), land use policy and real estate development, and innovative financing.
Employment Agreements
Develop employment agreements with incentives for medium to large size green businesses to hire people with barriers to employment.
Training and Support Programs
Develop and deliver training and supportive employment programs for low threshold green jobs in key industry sectors in partnership with local employment support service providers.
Comments
Thank you for your input! The strategies and actions listed here are drafts. Read the final version of the Greenest City Action Plan.
Double the number of green jobs in the City by 2020, over 2010 levels.
There will be a greening existing businesses target, but that is still in development.
Recent comments in Green Economy
noelson commented on
Create a Local Employment Action Plan
amyreidpd commented on
Establish Vancouver’s Green Enterprise Zone
DavidVS commented on
Establish Vancouver’s Green Enterprise Zone
Create a local employment action plan
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Develop employment agreements with incentives for medium to large size green businesses to hire people with barriers to employment.
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Immigrants, the homeless, and recovering drug addicts make up a proportionate amount of the disadvantaged in the Lower Mainland. With the aid of all three levels of government, community organizations, social enterprises and recruiting agencies, we believe that such groups have the capabilities of lessening such barriers for employment. In supporting a green economy it is important that we provide jobs for the disadvantaged that are sustainable, with end results revolving back into the community. By creating new job opportunities in existing green businesses such as green retrofitting, a variety of openings are created, increasing an individuals’ chances for employment. Actions to be considered for such opportunities include tax credits and sector-based training for newly hired employees. Human resources would recruit individuals who are in need of a job, and incentives, grants and funding created for green businesses and community organizations would provide the salary of employees. Untapped markets that have yet to be established in B.C. should also be taken into consideration. We find significant interest in areas like wastewater treatment, where a variety of innovation continues to take place based on the use and separation of wastewater and sewage runoff. Landfill sifting is a valuable form of employment for those who reside in poverty torn areas like that of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Couldn’t we provide a more structured form of sifting our own landfills by recruiting the disadvantaged to separate the recyclable and valuable items? Finally, it is estimated that a quarter of foods that we consume goes to waste. A change in policy is needed that would allow restaurants to collect and distribute food waste to industrial composts or charitable organizations. When employing those who have barriers, there are no disadvantages to host organizations as these individuals are in need of an occupation. Why not direct such opportunities towards the support of a green economy?