MoCo launches green task force
Montgomery County has launched a green task force of lawmakers, bureaucrats, educators, entrepreneurs and utilities to help shape the county into a destination hotspot for the clean technology industry.
The new Green Economy Task Force is working with local consulting firms to come up with a strategic plan by this summer to create a business atmosphere to lure environmentally friendly companies, widely seen as the next growth sector for the country.
“Montgomery County is really ideally situated to replicate what it did 25 years ago in the biotechnology sector … and become a real leader” in green technology, said Dick Wegman, chairman of the task force and attorney with Garvey Schubert Barer law firm.
The county is one of eight jurisdictions nationally devising such a green economy strategy through the Climate Prosperity Project, launched in 2007 by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and coordinated by Global Urban Development. It’s also in the running to house Maryland’s first-ever clean energy center, pitching Universities at Shady Grove in Rockville as an apt location for what will be a clearinghouse and incubator for the state’s green technology companies.
Sustainable Design Group, a Gaithersburg firm contracting with the county to inventory its current energy businesses and draft a 10-point plan to draw more, has counted 223 green technology companies in the county so far, nearly all in the category of green services and product providers no credit check payday loan.
But all acknowledged much of the challenge is defining what a green job is, and how to measure how many of them there are. For example, how does one assess a manufacturer of green products that operates in a non-environmentally conscious way? Or a non-energy company that’s just greening its internal operations?
“We’re not creating a separate sector like the biotech sector,” said John Spears, president of Sustainable Design Group. “We’re trying to green the whole economy … and that will create demand for the jobs and goods and services that we’re talking about.”
Last month, a sustainable working group appointed by County Executive Isiah Leggett released a report with 58 recommendations on making Montgomery County more eco-friendly, saving both energy consumption and costs in the long run.