In his book entitled Green Collar Economy, human rights leader and environmentalist Van Jones highlights the opportunities inherent in the “investment” wave of environmentalism. This investment can solve the two major challenges facing the United States and most other developed nations today – a struggling economy and the threat of climate change.

As we at Better Place gear up for broad deployment of electric vehicle (EV) battery charging and battery switch infrastructure in our initial markets of Israel and Denmark, I have the vantage point of seeing his claims come true. We are creating real “green collar” or “cleantech” jobs as 280 Better Place employees and 500+ electrical, civil, mechanical and industrial planners, engineers and contractors go to work. These infrastructure jobs are local and not easily outsourced. The best part – deployment contractors do not require any special training to get going. These projects are truly “shovel ready.”

Governments in other countries like France and China are taking advantage of the job creation potential of infrastructure projects required in the electrification of transportation. For example, France is investing €1.5 billion in deploying charging stations nationwide. In China, which recently overtook the United States as the largest market for automobiles, it is a national priority to electrify its transportation fleet with a “NEV” (New Energy Vehicles) sales target of 5% of total vehicle sales and 20% of total passenger car sales by 2015, and to create 1 billion Amp hours of battery manufacturing capacity by 2011.

New York Times Op-Ed columnist Thomas Friedman has written extensively on the anticipated growth of cleantech jobs and how parents should encourage their children to develop skills that position them for success in the Green Collar Economy. Now, almost every other week there is a student delegation from the top business, engineering and policy schools in the world visiting our HQ in Palo Alto. There is a very clear shift: cleantech jobs are the new banking and consulting jobs for the graduating class. We have already seen signs of an exodus from the broader technology sector to the cleantech sector (in fact, most of our management team and staff are living evidence of this shift). As interest in this field continues to grow, we will all benefit from formation of new cleantech startups benefitting from this rich supply of eager talent.

The San Francisco Bay Area has always provided early insights into mega trends like telecom and the Internet. Now, the cleantech mega trend is taking shape in front of our eyes: for example, the NUMMI plant in Fremont, California, which has been manufacturing internal combustion vehicles since 1962, is shutting down. Just 3 miles south of NUMMI, Solyndra is commissioning a new solar cell manufacturing plant capable of producing 500MW of panels annually. Construction of this complex will employ approximately 3,000 people, and operation of the facility will create over 1,000 jobs. Our neighborhood has evolved relatively quickly into ground zero for cleantech jobs, including manufacturing, design and R&D for everything from stationary fuel cells to solar panels to EV networks.

An estimate provided by the Electrification Coalition predicts that development of the automotive cleantech industry in the U.S. could produce a total of 1.9 million new jobs by 2030, mostly in the manufacturing sector. The creation of jobs would be immediate: they predict 227,000 in 2010, 700,000 in 2015 and almost 900,000 in 2020. Most importantly, these new jobs would be a permanent part of a continuously developing industry.

We at Better Place have the privilege of having a front row seat while shaping the next platform for cleantech job growth in markets like Israel and Denmark. The ability of companies and governments to create derivative products and wealth on this platform will be staggering. Governments have an amazing opportunity to leverage cleantech innovation to reshape their economies, their transportation infrastructure and most importantly their contribution to mitigating the risk of global climate change.