green-collar

Definition

Of or pertaining to employment in the environment or environmentalism industries.

Etymology

By analogy with other compounds in -collar, especially white-collar and blue-collar, and taking green to represent the environment, environmentalism, and so on.

Example Sentences

• "1976, Patrick Heffernan, “Jobs for the Environment — The Coming Green Collar Revolution”, in Jobs and Prices in the West Coast Region: Hearing before the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, Ninety-Fourth Congress, Second Session, U.S. Government Printing Office, page 134,"
• "1997, Geoff Mulgan, Perri 6 [sic], et al., The British Spring: A Manifesto for the Election After Next, Demos, page 26, The United States, Canada, Germany, and Denmark are all generating hundreds of thousands of new 'green collar' jobs, especially for young people, achieving remarkable reductions in energy, water, waste disposal and materials costs."
• "2001, Diane Warburton and Ian Christie, From Here to Sustainability: Politics in the Real World, Earthscan, page 75, Studies for the UK suggest that the more than 100,000 existing 'green collar' workers in environmental occupations could be joined by many thousands more, both in the private sector and in the 'social economy' of community enterprises."