Friday 7 April 2017

UK’s low carbon economy worth £43.1bn in 2015

The UK's low carbon and renewable energy economy (LCRE) generated £43.1 billion in 2015.

That's according to a new report from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which says this was up on the year before and accounted for 1.3% of total UK non-financial turnover.

The energy efficient products sector generated £13.9 billion alone, more than a third of total LCRE turnover.

LCRE activities resulted in the employment of around 234,000 full-time equivalent employees in 2015, accounting for 1% of employees across the UK's entire non-financial business economy.

Approximately half of these people worked in the energy efficiency sector.

LCRE businesses imported an estimated £4.7 billion and exported an estimated £4.1 billion in 2015, accounting for 0.9% of overall activity in the UK

They also acquired £5.7 billion in capital assets and generated £0.4 billion from disposals of capital assets.

The largest proportion of acquisitions were in the solar sector (£1.6 billion), closely followed by the onshore wind sector (£1.3 billion).

More than half (52.9%) of the UK’s turnover from onshore wind activities was generated in Scotland (£1.5 billion).

The UK Government says the country is “on track” to meet its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 29% by the end of this year.