The U.S. Labor Department's release Wednesday of $100 million in Recovery Act funds for green job training includes a nearly $3 million grant to New York City's innovative energy efficiency education program for building superintendents.

The $2,802,269 grant to the SEIU Local 32BJ Thomas Shortman Training Fund enables the 1,000 Green Supers program launched in October to expand and train as many as 2,200 building superintendents, proponents of the program said today.

32BJ is the largest property services union in the United States with members of 120,000 -- 70,000 of whom are in New York.

The joint labor-management Thomas Shortman Fund has helped train 32BJ members in the greening of building services for the past five years.

In addition to the union, strategic partners for the fund include the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations, which represents building owners and managers in New York City, and the Urban Green Council, the U.S. Green Building Council's New York Chapter.

The fund's Green Supers program is aimed at ratcheting up the knowledge base and efforts of the men and women who bear frontline responsibility for the operation and performance of New York City’s buildings.

The grant received this weekend shifts the program into overdrive and more than doubles the original training goal. The program coincides with a broader initiative to green New York City's built environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2030.

Supporters of the Green Supers effort include NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the U.S. Green Building Council, the Building Performance Institute.

On average across the country, buildings consume 40 percent of energy and are responsible for 39 percent of CO2 emissions, according to the USGBC.

New York City's buildings, however, are responsible for 66 percent of energy use and 77 percent of the metropolis' greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Thomas Shortman Fund's "Blueprint for the Greening of NYC's Buildings," which was released in September.

"High-impact, cost-effective labor-management programs like Green Supers are vital to the success of President Obama's energy and environmental protection agenda," said 32BJ President Mike Fishman in a prepared statement. "With nearly 80 percent of New York's greenhouse gas emissions produced by buildings it's imperative for owners, workers, environmental groups and the federal government to jointly tackle this environmental challenge."
 
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