Sacramento Region
Decarbonization requires a larger workforce, higher technology integration skills
More than 18.000 annual job openings indicate solid economic growth. Environmental and Equity progress requires advances in workforce development to decarbonize communities and create economic mobility for their residents.
Our Process:
Three-Part Data Analysis
TESC cultivates regional collaboratives that prioritize workforce initiatives to drive the triple bottom line of Economy, Environment, and Equity
Economy
The Sacramento clean technology and energy cluster is a target for economic development due to the presence of strong regional initiatives that have targeted growth and development of this cluster since 2005 (e.g. Green Capital Alliance, CleanStart and Greenwise). A study of this cluster in the Sacramento Region identified approximately 200 establishments supporting over 3,000 jobs and $846 million of annual sales.
The proprietary Green Technology Firm database created for this study shows that the City of Sacramento contains about 25 percent of the Region’s Clean Energy Technology establishments (including one of the larger and more visible firms in the clean transportation and energy efficiency segments, Airco Mechanical) with close to 34 percent of the estimated cluster jobs and 55 percent of annual sales. Most of the Clean Energy Technology firms in the city fall within the clean energy and energy efficiency segments of the cluster.
Source: https://www.cityofsacramento.org/Economic-Development/Key-Industries/Clean-Technology-and-Energy
New construction and infrastructure are needed to support economic growth in the Capital Region. However, evidenced by the data above, this next wave of prosperity is in jeopardy without the construction workforce to meet current and future needs. Construction workforce gaps cause project delays and result in increased costs — often ending in delayed or abandoned projects.
One area where a significant gap exists is in the construction workforce. In fact, according to a 2018 report by Valley Vision and the Centers of Excellence at Los Rios Community College District, there is a “projected shortage of about 7,250 workers … annually over the next five years…including a shortfall of nearly 2,000 carpenters, 860 construction managers, 640 electricians, …520 heavy equipment operators, and 500 engineers.” In late 2019, the Metro Chamber convened a working group to examine the roadblocks and policy friction points to help reduce the projected shortage of over 7,000 construction industry workers.
Source: https://metrochamber.org/2020/01/closing-the-construction-workforce-gap/
Environment
The air is terrible in Sacramento, and climate change is baking the problem in, according to a report released Wednesday by the American Lung Association.
For the second year in a row, Sacramento was named fifth in a list of worst major U.S. cities for ozone pollution in the Lung Association’s annual State of the Air report. Sacramento also moved up from 19th to 15th in the nation for particle pollution days, scoring an F for both categories.
This year’s report covered data from 2015 to 2017, when record high temperatures and wildfires caused by climate change contributed significantly to a rise in air pollution levels across California, according to the report.
“The climate warming we see is actually undoing a lot of the good work that our air quality regulation is trying to do,” Dr. John Balmes, the physician member of the California Air Resources Board, said in a press conference outlining the report in April 2019.
Balmes said that Sacramento fares comparably better on year-round pollution levels, which are mostly affected by power plant and diesel fuel emissions, but still suffers from more bad particle days because of wildfires and high ozone days because of global warming.
Equity
The Need for Equity
A recent report* found that between 2006 and 2016 the Sacramento region ranked in the bottom-third of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in growth and prosperity. The report concluded that the increased disparity in quality of life between high-performing and low-performing neighborhoods, including access to basic services such as health care, transportation, education and economic opportunity, is holding back our entire region’s potential.
*2018 Brookings Institute Study, Charting a Course to the Sacramento Region’s Future Economic Prosperity.
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