International trade in environmental and clean technology products by origin and destination, 2023

The Environmental and Clean Technology Products Economic Account (ECTPEA) measures the economic contribution of environmental and clean technology (ECT) products in terms of output, gross domestic product, employment (number of jobs) and other economic variables. Estimates are directly comparable with national results for the Canadian economy. The trade estimates released today provide details on the country of origin and destination of the export and import values already released in table 36-10-0629-01.

Estimates for 2022 and 2023 are preliminary and will be revised when updated data become available, including the supply and use tables for those reference years.

ECT products are defined as any process, product or service that reduces environmental impacts through any of the following three strategies:

• environmental protection activities that prevent, reduce or eliminate pollution or any other degradation of the environment;
• resource management activities that result in the more efficient use of natural resources, thus safeguarding against their depletion;
• the use of products that have been adapted to be significantly less energy or resource intensive than the industry standard.

Two broad categories of ECT products are traded: environmental goods and services (including clean electricity, biofuels and primary goods, waste goods, and waste management and remediation services) and clean technology goods and services (including manufactured goods, scientific and research and development services, construction services, and support services). The products follow the Supply and Use Product Classification used in the Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts.

As part of the Government of Canada's initiative to develop the Clean Technology Data Strategy, the ECTPEA provides comprehensive measures of the supply and use of environmental and clean technology products in the Canadian economy. The ECTPEA has a broader scope than the Survey of Environmental Goods and Services (SEGS) because it captures all economy-wide transactions in the ECT products sector, including elements such as clean energy and scrap goods. The government and non-profit sectors are also fully covered in the ECTPEA.

The compilation of the ECTPEA draws on a variety of data sources, including Statistics Canada's supply and use tables, detailed import and export statistics released in Canada's balance of international payments, and the SEGS.

Examples of environmental goods and services and clean technologies are available in the publication Clean technologies and the Survey of Environmental Goods and Services: A technical reference guide (Catalogue number16-511-X).