Announced May 14, 2008 at the ICLEI Local Action Summit in Albuquerque. The full text of the pledge is below.

Read the press release

Local Government Green Jobs Pledge:

Building a Green Economy from the Bottom Up 

The 21st century is our time to build an inclusive green economy in the United States that benefits our neighborhoods, our working families and our planet.  Our green future will be invented at the local level and crafted by local leaders, and our actions will provide an example and a challenge to our state and federal governments.  We are ready to rebuild American competitiveness and environmental leadership by growing a green economy that fights global warming, pollution and poverty at the same time.

As local government leaders, we commit to:

Focus on green-collar jobs as a central strategy for advancing environmental, economic, and climate protection goals.  Green-collar jobs are defined as those that:

• Contribute directly to preserving or enhancing environmental quality;
• Provide pathways to prosperity for all  workers;
• Offer competitive salaries and lead to a lasting career-track, thereby strengthening the US middle class; and
• Emphasize community-based investments that cannot be outsourced.

• Strengthen and make further progress on our stated commitment to improving the environment in ways that grow both the green economy and green-collar jobs locally;
• Build on climate and environmental commitments to create market demand for green products, services, and skilled workers and create more prosperous local economies;
• Catalyze green-collar job creation and training by supporting policies that drive public and private investment in an inclusive local green economy; and
• Develop education and job training programs that improve social equity and provide pathways out of poverty for our residents while strengthening our middle class by equipping workers for high demand jobs in the green economy.

Execute tangible actions that place priority on genuinely building an inclusive green economy that will:

• Involve our communities in developing and enacting green-collar jobs initiatives;
• Drive accountability and resolve to continuously improve and strengthen our efforts to invest in climate solutions that create economic opportunity and build sustainable communities;
• Provide accessible leadership that is responsive to our communities as we evolve the green economy;
• Use the purchasing power of our local governments to create markets for renewable energy, energy efficiency and other green industries; and
• Invest new local government resources in programs and initiatives that build an inclusive green economy, while leveraging and aligning existing public resources, and private sources of capital and finance, toward these same goals.

We commit to join together as a movement of local governments across the United States to seize the economic, environmental and social opportunities offered by building an inclusive green economy of high quality jobs and a thriving green-collar workforce.

Let’s do it now - together.  There is no time to waste.

Mayor Martin Chávez
Albuquerque, New Mexico

Mayor R.T. Rybak

Minneapolis, MN

Mike Cooper, Vice Chair County Council

Snohomish County, WA

We invite all elected officials in the United States to join our commitment to building a green economy. In the coming weeks we will be expanding the www.usgreenjobspledge.org website to facilitate leadership and action.

In the meantime, we encourage all local government leaders to get engaged by emailing annie.strickler@iclei.org.

This commitment is supported by the Apollo Alliance, Center for American Progress, Green For All and ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA.