Growth and jobs in the environmental economy
The environmental goods and services sector, abbreviated as EGSS and also referred to as environmental economy or eco-industries, consists of a heterogeneous set of producers of goods and services aiming at the protection of the environment and the management of natural resources. The scope of the environmental sector is defined according to the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting.
Eurostat collects data on the following variables of the environmental sector:
- output
- gross value added
- employment
- exports of environmental products.
These variables are defined in the same way as in the European System of Accounts (ESA). They are available broken down into market activities, non-market activities and ancillary activities. These variables are classified by
- economic activity, according to the statistical classification of economic activities (NACE) Rev. 2 in 10 categories
- environmental purpose, such as wastewater management or waste management as set out in the classification of environmental protection activities (CEPA 2000). This allows estimating the sector of e.g. the renewable energy or the biodiversity.
Environmental sector data are collected as one of the environmental-economic accounts. They provide information in a way that is fully compatible with concepts, principles, and classifications of national accounts. They therefore enable integrated analyses of environmental, energy and economic issues, such as through environmental-economic modelling.
Data collected about the environmental sector are the basis for calculating the following indicators:
- growth of the environmental sector, commonly also called ‘environmental growth’ or ‘green growth’
- employment in the environmental sector, also called ‘green jobs’
- imports of environmental products
- labour productivity for the environmental sector or parts of it, e.g. renewable energy sector.