Workplace Health and Safety in Teal‐Collar Jobs: How Blue‐Collar Men Working With Green Technology Embrace a Shifting Culture of Masculinity

Masculinity is often portrayed as a barrier to shifting away from fossil fuels because jobs in extractive industries represent a nostalgic masculine breadwinner identity. Accordingly, proposals for a just energy transition have provoked backlash aimed at protecting against perceived threats to manhood. Yet even though many men in blue‐collar jobs work with green technologies, their roles and perspectives are often overlooked in gender and environmental scholarship. Likewise, little is known about the occupational health and safety risks they face in these roles. We introduce the term teal‐collar job to describe the combination of blue‐collar and green‐collar work. We find that teal‐collar workers are embracing a shifting workplace culture characterized by respect for health and safety, camaraderie, and a desire to be emotionally present for family. However, enthusiastic environmentalism is not a prominent feature within participants' expressions of masculinity. Thus, our study challenges assumptions that working in blue‐collar trades broadly reproduces hegemonic, domineering forms of masculinity.