Over the summer of 2009, the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation (RIEDC) held a Green Economy Roundtable - a large, inclusive one-day workshop of about 150 people interested in developing so-called green jobs in Rhode Island. 

The roundtable produced a set of recommendations. Specifically, RIEDC or whoever would lead this effort should focus on four initiatives that would accelerate growth:

• Advanced manufacturing capabilities
• Develop energy efficiency capacity
• Increase innovation, R & D and commercializations
• Develop a wind power supply chain

Further, each of these "acceleration initiatives" should consider five building blocks on which they would be built:

• Capital
• Workforce Training and Education
• Behavior Change
• Business Growth and Adoption
• Policy

With this framework, RIEDC asked New Commons to help them carry this project through its next phase: the creation of a "green economy roadmap" that would include specific projects and some level of implementation.

Read more about this project after the jump ---> 

Green Economy Workshops at New Commons

Our protocol for the workshops began with a review of provisional goals as well as existing and emergent conditions based on briefs developed jointly by RIEDC and New Commons. (As part of the closure process, I will ask about posting the conditions briefs on this or another site. Big ups to the RIEDC research team. They rule!)

Next, participants worked in small groups to identify important metrics and 5-year targets toward the overall goals. Here, all the workshops but wind power began with the thought: metrics either don't exist or a are woefully inadequate.

In energy efficiency, for example, the group insisted that measuring "energy delivered" might actually be counterproductive. RI already has the lowest per capita usage - based on our shrinking industrial economy.  Thus the roadmap will start by measuring the amount of energy required to produce a dollar of GDP. The target is declining energy use with rising GDP.

Next, in the meat of the workshop, the small groups developed sets of projects around the various building blocks. In discussion and through a voting process, participants rated the projects on importance, producing a prioritized list of projects grouped by the time required to complete.

Finally, the groups discussed the issues of integration and implementation. Universally, the call to action was: now, now, now!

Creating the Roadmap v 1.0

• The roadmap needed many expert editors - the quarterbacks
• The roadmap would need continuous revision to track rapid changes

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