'Green collar' jobs once a sprint, now a crawl: the promise of green jobs has not risen to the heights predicted just a few short years ago--due to a poor economy and lingering uncertainty about how and where to expand, as well as a lack of agreement on what constitutes a green job.

• Author: Ladd, Scott
• Position: HUMAN RESOURCES

Just a few years ago, green jobs were the next big thing in United States business. Executives were tripping over one another to create 21st century positions and attract the best and the brightest of a new generation of workers to fill them. Public grants and funding were widely available to grow green start-ups and expand employment opportunities.

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In the process, businesses large and small were reaping the publicity benefits of "doing good," putting the planet, in some cases, ahead of additional profits.

Along the way, the juggernaut hit the speed bump. Today, the "green-collar" jobs race is more a crawl than a sprint. The wildly optimistic prognosis of meteoric expansion in the green job market from 2005-07--once delivered from boardrooms, C-suites and media outlets--has given way to fiscal reality.

The decline has led some industry observers to wonder: What happened to the green jobs revolution? The early steps in a transition from a blue-collar to a green-collar American workforce have been stumbling, some say. Experts suggest a few fundamental reasons for the sluggish pace: a global economic meltdown that slammed the brakes on job expansion, a decline in venture capital investment, the inevitable loss of initial luster and uncertainty over tax rates and incentives.

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"Green jobs are still getting created, says John Challenger, chief executive of global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray and Christmas Inc. Hower, he adds, "it was so ballyhooed at the start that it's lost its moment a little bit."

For some companies, Challenger says, "it was more of a marketing or branding concept. Trying to turn that into a business, then exploring the economic side of it--that's harder."

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Further, Challenger believes that many employers initially viewed green-collar jobs as a passing fad, and inevitably some start-ups that promoted green products, services--and employment--have succumbed to the pressures of the recession and insufficient revenue.

Doug Arms, senior vice president with Adecco Group North America Inc., a global recruiting and workforce-solutions company, agrees that it "feels a little like the shine has worn off."

"There was a lot of hype around it, a lot of talk of investment dollars that were going to be a part of it, through ARRA [the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act] and other things," he says. "There were a lot of dollars committed--in theory. I...