How the Green Economy affects us
The green economy includes goods and services produced to protect and preserve the environment. It is important for the UK and other countries to measure the green economy in order to conserve and maintain our natural resources, and prevent and reduce pollution and environmental deterioration.
The green economy added £26.3bn to the economy in 2012, which was 1.6% of GDP. It grew by 1.5% since 2010, which was slower than GDP at 6.2% growth. However, total output in the green economy grew by 9.1% during this period to £55.4bn. The green economy contributed 357,200 full-time equivalent jobs1 in 2012, an increase of 5.3% (18,000 jobs) since 2010.
Index numbers are used to measure changes and simplify comparisons. They use a base year (in this case, 2010) and compare current data against it.
UK green economy output, value added and employment between 2010 and 2012
Download the data.
Environmental activities contributing to the green economy
There were particularly interesting trends in the wastewater and waste management, production of renewable energy and insulation activities- we can see this by looking at employment and GVA2 as measures.
For instance wastewater and waste management had the largest employment at just over a third of all green jobs (33.8%). It also contributed the most to the economy in terms of GVA at £9.4 billion. The largest growth in employment among the green economy activities between 2010 and 2012 was in the production of renewable energy at 59.1% and insulation activities at 54.4%.
Download the data.
View the Green Economy release for more information.