Mass. ranks sixth in energy efficiency jobs, per report

Photo/Grant Welker Energy efficiency firm Ameresco is headquartered in Framingham.

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By State House News Service

Massachusetts ranks sixth in the nation for number of full-time energy efficiency jobs in 2017, according to a new report, dropping from fourth in 2016.

The report, released Thursday by the nonpartisan business group Environmental Entrepeneurs (E2) and Massachusetts-based clean energy nonprofit E4TheFuture, tracks raw job numbers for each state rather than per capita statistics. It determined there are 6,195 energy efficiency businesses and 84,556 Bay State residents working in energy efficiency.

E2 also found that within the energy sector, energy efficiency employers added the most new jobs in 2017. Its workforce now outnumbers elementary and middle school teachers is nearly double the size of U.S. law enforcement.

Massachusetts trails Illinois, Florida, New York and Texas. California took the first spot with 310,433 workers. In total, the report says that 2.25 million Americans work in energy efficiency.

While the Commonwealth took sixth place in the jobs-focused report, it has consistently been ranked as the best state in energy efficiency policy by The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) in its annual state scorecard. The scorecard assesses state policies and programs that improve energy efficiency in homes, businesses, industries, and transportation systems.

In its 2017 scorecard, the ACEEE gave Massachusetts the top spot for the seventh consecutive year, citing statewide electricity savings, the Green Communities Act of 2008 and state efficiency program administrators as factors in the state's success.