Measuring Employment in the Environment Industry

The collection of firms producing environmental goods and delivering environmental services constitutes the 'environment industry.' This industry has grown significantly in the past 20 years and stands to continue this development in the future as emerging issues such as the level of greenhouse gas emissions are addressed.

An important aspect in the evaluation of the industry's performance is in the area of job creation and employment generation. Related to the challenges involved in classifying firms to the environment industry is the issue of identifying the employees who work in environment-related activities. Currently, the published data on employment include only the total employment of those businesses producing environmental goods and services, i.e., employees who worked in the production/provision of goods and services that have both environmental and non-environmental applications.