Green Jobs Strategy and the Transition to the Low-Carbon Economy in Northern Virginia

This paper looks at Arlington County Virginia’s efforts to become more economically competitive, energy efficient, sustainable and emit fewer greenhouse gases. It reviews the county’s experiences in the creation of green jobs to accelerate deployment of energy efficient and low-carbon technologies, practices and policies. The paper also looks at the impacts on the overall attractiveness of the community as a place to live and work, including ways in which innovative energy systems create attractive investment opportunities for business. A major focus will be to review the importance of initiatives scaled to the community-level and the degree to which the examples are demonstrating the value of “scale” in implementation. This working paper feeds into the wider OECD project on Climate Change, Employment and Local Development being developed by the LEED Programme.