Emily Courtney

Emily Courtney provides support to organizations and communities to develop pathways into quality green careers that address both the climate crisis and economic inequity through her organization, Good Green Work. Supportive services include program and project design, partnership development, research, fundraising, project management, and program implementation leadership.

Emily Courtney is dedicated to building a just and sustainable economy through green job skills training & workforce education. Emily has over 20 years of experience at the intersection of environmental, jobs skills, and entrepreneurship education. In the past decade serving as the Senior Director of Green Career Education & Workforce Development at the non-profit Strategic Energy Innovations (SEI), Emily led fundraising, partnership development, program design, project implementation, and people management with an education and workforce development team that grew from 3 people to more than 20 and programs that grew to serve over 65,000 K-12 students, 30-50 colleges and universities, and over 200 post-graduate Fellows annually. These K-Career hands-on sustainability experiences engage, inspire, and empower participants to develop a high-impact, high-quality climate career.

Emily previously lived in South Africa and provided entrepreneurship coaching and support to Black-owned businesses. Prior to that she served as the Director of Green Technology Education at Laney College and led the Oakland Green Jobs Corps, one of the earliest leading workforce development programs in the nation providing green building, energy efficiency, and renewable energy career education, with a focus on serving individuals with barriers to employment. Emily began her career teaching environmental education, wilderness medicine, leadership, entrepreneurship, and job skills in the Bay Area, Washington State, New York City, and Vietnam. She holds an MBA in Sustainable Enterprise.

Good Green Work builds on this experience to use a data-driven approach to identify the in-demand careers that are essential for addressing the climate crisis, and then to develop the partnerships and programs needed to create a highly skilled climate workforce with equitable access to these quality climate careers.

Initiative: 
Green Career Education