Greener industries grow faster than overall economy, new EPI study finds

10th October 2012

In the US, a new Economic Policy Institute study finds that industries with higher proportions of green jobs have higher job growth than does the overall economy.

In Counting up to green: Assessing the green economy and its implications for growth and equity, EPI Senior Policy Analyst Ethan Pollack examines data from jobs in businesses that produce goods or provide services that benefit the environment or conserve natural resources.

Pollack's primary findings include the following:

• Greener industries are growing faster than the overall economy. For every percentage point of an industry's "green intensity" (scored out of 100), the annual job growth was 0.034 percentage points higher. Future projections to 2020 suggest continued employment growth from green intensity.
  
  
• States with greater green intensity generally fared better in the economic downturn.
  
  
• Green jobs are accessible to workers without a college degree. For every 1 percentage-point increase in green intensity in a given industry, there was a corresponding 0.28 percentage-point increase in the share of jobs in that industry held by workers without a four-year college degree.
  
  
• Manufacturing plays a strong role in the green economy. The sector accounts for 20.4 percent of all green jobs despite representing only 10.8 percent of total private employment. Furthermore, the green industries within the manufacturing sector are projected to grow 25 percent faster than the overall sector.

Much of the current discussion about green jobs focuses on the renewable energy sector and therefore overlooks how pervasive green jobs are throughout the economy. In truth, the utility sector accounts for just three percent of total private green jobs, and even within that sector, the water and sewage industry accounts for over four times the number of green jobs as renewable energy. Occupations like trash collectors, sewage workers, construction workers, household appliance manufacturers and bus drivers are as integral to the green economy as solar panel installers or wind turbine manufacturers.

The findings are consistent with past studies on green jobs. For example, the Pew Center on the States found in its June 2009 report, The Clean Energy Economy: Repowering Jobs, Businesses, and Investments Across America, that clean energy jobs grew nearly two-and-a-half times as fast as jobs in the overall economy. This correlation between green intensity and job growth is set to continue through 2020.

"Transitioning to a greener and more sustainable economy is good for the environment, but it also helps promote stronger economic growth and opportunity," says Pollack. "And the seeds of this transformation are planted throughout the economy, oftentimes in unexpected places."

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