Check out this report [PDF] from Duke University, completed in conjunction with Environmental Defense Fund and a coalition of labor unions. It is on the economic benefits of energy recycling. This is Chapter 7 of an on-going series on Manufacturing Climate Solutions that is focused specifically on those green technologies that can benefit the U.S. manufacturing sector.

Green jobs, to be sure, but not in the Van Jones sense where the green pulls the job, but in the sense that businesses who seek to be green can boost their profitability and protect existing jobs.

Reader support helps sustain our work. Donate today to keep our climate news free. All donations DOUBLED!

To be sure, there’s a fair amount in here about our company, but I think the conclusions are generalizable, as is the political benefit to be gained from “strange bedfellows” of environmentalists and rust belt industries (and their employees). Worth the time to read.

Grist thanks its sponsors. Become one.