‘Green’ Economy Is Real but Needs a Push, Study Suggests

The Brookings Institution, in collaboration with the Technology Partnership Program of the research and development company Battelle, has compiled what it describes as one of the most comprehensive and up-to-date analyses of the nation’s enigmatic green economy. The report, “Sizing the Clean Economy,” collected data from every county and major metropolitan areas in the United States from 2003 to 2010. One point the report makes is that while green initiatives are driving growth and innovation, market and policy challenges are preventing them from reaching their full potential. Those obstacles include policy gaps that undercut market demand, shortfalls in financing that lead to uncertainty and instability for investors, and an inadequate system for supporting innovation. According to the report, the green economy employed 2.7 million people in 2010, or about 2 percent of the American workforce. To put this number into some perspective, the health care sector, the largest private job provider in the nation, employs 13.8 million people, or 10.2 percent. Despite its relatively modest size, the green economy is still larger than the fossil fuels sector (2.4 million jobs) or the biosciences sector (1.4 million jobs). The report also found that the green economy weathered the recession better than the nation’s economy did as a whole. Where the green economy excels is at providing the kind of well-paid, low-skill jobs that are often lamented to be leaving the United States, the study suggests. “The important take-away message here is that the green economy is real and it’s growing, but it needs some encouragement to live up to all the expectations.”

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/green-economy-is-real-but-needs-a-push-study-suggests/