London’s green economy thriving, says Boris

Mayor of London Boris Johnson has revealed that London's green economy is thriving and continuing to grow - despite the economic downturn.


A report commissioned by the mayor to provide insight into London’s low carbon and environmental goods and services sector, shows growth of more than 4% and sales worth more than £23bn in 2009/10.

This has been forecast to increase to more than £27bn by the end of 2012/13.

It also found that more than 9,000 companies are active in the low carbon and environmental goods and services sector, generating employment for 160,000 people, with the bulk of the capital’s new jobs being created in the low carbon sector.

In particular, low carbon finance, solar photovoltaics and waste management were found to be the strongest areas. Carbon finance was shown to be worth nearly £6bn, accounting for 97% of the UK’s carbon finance market.

Commenting on the findings, Mr Johnson, said that making London an energy efficient, low-carbon city “is not only vital to meet environmental challenges, but it will also attract significant new investment into the city and create tens of thousands of jobs for Londoners”.

He added: “These figures clearly show that the capital is already established as a leader in low carbon finance and it is encouraging to see our city gathering strength in other significant areas of the green economy, such as renewable energy and low carbon building technologies.”

However, the INNOVAS research also found a number of areas where London underperforms compared with other regions of the UK, including recovery and recycling, energy management and building technologies.

As a result, the mayor said that the market opportunity for these areas in London is “considerable” and represents real opportunities for businesses to increase their market share.

He has also anticipated that green sector growth will play an important role in helping the capital to achieve its environmental goals of a 60% cut in carbon and to deliver 25% of London’s energy by decentralised energy sources by 2025.

Carys Matthews

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