Atlanta ranks in top ten for clean jobs

By Shomial Ahmad

Atlanta, GA – A Washington DC-based think tank ranks the Atlanta metro area as one of the top ten regions for clean jobs. Those jobs can be anything from waste management to solar cell manufacturing.

Around 43,000 people in the metro area work in the clean economy, according to a report released today by the Brookings Institution. Mark Muro is one of the authors of the report. He says that job growth is most significant at the regional level, partly because of collaboration between industry and educational institutions.

"Because they accelerate innovation. They promote entrepreneurship, enhance job creation."

Take Norcross-based solar cell manufacturer Suniva. The company has more than quadrupled its size since it began in 2007.

Bryan Ashley works at the company. He says Suniva collaborates with one of Georgia Tech's centers.

"When something is very promising, then we'll take it here to our own research and development lab, and turn that into a full-scale cell to determine if it's economically feasible to manufacture in a large scale."

Ashley says the majority of their products are exported. But he does say in the past two years, the domestic market has grown, in states such as New Jersey and Colorado.