TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) – Tucson wants to know how many green jobs it has right now.

It’s asking members of its business community what they’re doing and what their plans are. Questions include how many green jobs they think they’ll have in the future.

From the incentives for harvesting rainwater to tax credits for rooftop solar, the renewable landscape is changing. Local businesses welcome the city’s efforts to get a grip on the future of green jobs here.

“We are definitely under a lot of change,” said Robert Neifert, director of business development for Solar Gain.

Changes in federal tax incentives have Solar Gain shifting to leasing residential systems instead of selling them.

“I think we’re a green industry,” Neifert said.

Neifert welcomes a survey by Tucson’s Office of Economic Initiatives about green jobs and local industry needs to support their success in that realm.

“So we have a friendly governor, we have a friendly city at the city of Tucson so we think the state and local are probably the best places to support public policy right now,” Neifert said.

“I think a lot of this work can be community-driven, and a lot of what we have done at Watershed Management Group has been community-driven and community-funded,” said Lisa Shipek, executive director of Watershed Management Group.

The non-profit could need more of that local support if federal grants become scarcer.

“We are not only doing sustainability education, but we are also doing job training and policy work,” Shipek said.

The city’s 20-question survey asks what industry sector the business is in, how many green jobs it has and plans to have in the next three years, challenges in hiring them, and what the city or community could do to support green job growth. While Lisa Shipek hopes Watershed Management group can help answer the demand, both she and Neifert consider the survey a first step to understanding what that might be.

“We’re in a position to do a lot of green job training, we love doing that because it builds the capacity of the community so we would be really excited to partner with the city more to do more green job development,” Shipek said.

The survey is open until Sept. 12. It also asks if the survey taker is aware of Tucson’s climate action plan, Tucson Resilient Together.

Participant information is confidential, and the information gathered will be analyzed separately.

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