Van Jones and the New Green Economy

By Chad Farrell of Encore Redevelopment, May 2009

On May 21, 2009, Chad Farrell of Encore Redevelopment had the honor and privilege to participate in a green focus group session with Van Jones, Special Advisor to President Obama and author of The Green Collar Economy.  The discussion was an opportunity to hear about developments in Washington and get ideas as to how to best position Vermont to thrive in the new green economy. 

The roundtable discussion followed Mr. Jones’ keynote address to the Vermont Business and Industry Expo in which he outlined the objectives of the Obama administration with respect to the green economy.  Below are some highlights from Mr. Jones’ speech:

• The administration intends to have energy initiatives help drive the economy out of its current slump and offer opportunities for economic growth in the next 10 years in a similar way that high technology drove the economy of the past 10 years.
  
  

• The administration intends to make market-based energy innovations a priority.
  
  

• The administration realizes that the United States needs to change from being a consumer based economy back to a manufacturing based economy, with clean energy leading the way.
  
  

• There will be a major effort to rescue industry and create jobs by making the US a global leader in exports of renewable energy technology and its components.
  
  

• There will be a big push to connect clean energy generation centers to major population centers.
  
  

• The administration has allocated upwards of $40B for clean energy, a tremendous increase from the $5B that in 2005 was considered a major achievement by the green community.