Green jobs on the rise

California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia could triple their number of green jobs by 2020, new research finds.

According to a study released by the Pacific Coast Collaborative, the West Coast currently supports about 508,000 clean-economy jobs or about 3 percent of the entire workforce, according to Inside Climate News. The study’s authors note that with synchronized clean-air and clean-car mandates, as well as green-building codes, that figure could rise close to 1.5 million by the end of the decade.

The “clean economy” includes those who engineer and install solar and wind technologies, as well as organic farmers, train conductors and recycling collectors. The study comes as part of an effort to demonstrate that federal and state investments in green jobs are paying off.