You’ve heard “green jobs” are the future. Meet a Miamian who has one now.
By Atena Sherry
What does a green job look like?
Ian Wogan, 36, doesn’t go to the Design District to shop at Louis Vuitton, but he is a staple of the neighborhood. Wogan, an arborist, regularly visits to tend to trees that grow among the luxury buildings.
His company, True Tree Service, has managed landscaping in the area for seven years. They use trees and native plants to filter carbon emissions, reduce the urban heat-island effect, and mitigate flooding.
In the Design District alone, they’ve installed over two acres of green rooftops and introduced 5,000 native orchids, which flourish throughout the district.
Why it matters
As climate tech transforms more and more sectors of the economy, the definition of a green job will expand dramatically, to encompass marketers of electric vehicles, to accountants at sustainable manufacturers to bankers creating instruments to mitigate flood risk. For now, however, the term generally describes roles such as solar installers, EV mechanics, specialized landscapers, and construction workers retrofitting buildings.
Wogan and True Tree Service’s 22 employees are among the estimated 5,150 people who had green jobs in Miami in 2019, according to a recent City of Miami report. That number is expected to grow strongly, as federal, state and local governments — as well as businesses — invest in the effort to stop or slow climate change.
Visiting Wogan on the job demonstrates what some of those green jobs will look like. At one of Wogan’s projects in Hialeah, employees shoveled mud and concrete out of the ground to make space for native trees. They rigged the trunks to tractors hauling them across the lot to their new homes. The new trees will absorb excess water and allow it to filter into the aquifer beneath.
For staff, good pay and no college required
Wogan says he looks for work ethic and a willingness to learn, not academic credentials. And all his workers make more than minimum wage — some much more.
“Our system has alienated people with a good work ethic, and looks down upon people who do manual labor,” Wogan says.” It’s made outcasts of people who don’t necessarily have other options.”
Green jobs provide opportunities for upward mobility. A Brookings report found that workers in the clean energy sector — which includes environmental management jobs, like the ones performed by Wogan’s team — earn more than the national average, including at the lower end of the spectrum.
Day laborers make at least $125 a day at True Tree Service; specialized employees can make as much as $500.
“You don’t need to go to college to do this work,” Wogan says “we’ve hired guys out of prison-release projects or people with no experience that are now running their own companies.”
Understanding the ecosystem surfaces opportunity
Wogan grew up in Palmetto Bay, and studied agroecology at Florida International University. Indeed, for someone who spends so much time in trees, Wogan is really concerned about water.
Miami is sandwiched between the salty Atlantic and the sweet, slow-moving Everglades in a concrete metropolis built atop porous oolite rock. Rain water in the urban core is collected and diverted into the sea by storm drains. Not only does that keep it from filtering back into the aquifer, but as the sea level rises, those storm drains increasingly overflow.
“We’ve largely bulldozed, diverted and polluted our natural water flow,” Wogan says. “We’re taking fresh water from our aquifer and then we’re cutting off the source, rain, to replenish it.”
Wogan has started a new company, Treesources, to design landscapes and use green infrastructure to drain rainwater into the soil, where it can filter into the aquifer.
“We have the opportunity to [filter] what might have been pollutants into a much more restorative and abundant flow of water,” he says. “There’s a significant opportunity to create jobs, capture a natural resource, and create a circular economic model that is adaptable and sustainable.”
New policies will create more green jobs
Miami will need a wide array of tactics if it hopes to meet the threat of climate change. Miami-Dade’s 2021 Climate Action Strategy aims to make sweeping land- and energy-use changes, including incorporating solar and increasing the efficiency of buildings. For Wogan, the challenge is an opportunity to make money while trying to save his home.
“We’ve done a lot of damage, so anything we can do to restore, improve and adapt our infrastructure is going a long way to improve our impact.”
Atena Sherry is a freelance reporter and documentary film producer in Florida. Atena has covered major news events across the state including hurricanes, protests, and election recounts, for publications including New York Magazine, the Daily Beast, and the Miami New Times. Learn more.
Opportunity Miami is powered by the Miami-Dade Beacon Council.
