The Growth of London's Green Economy

London’s green economy is growing fast and with ambitious green initiatives from the UK government it will keep growing. According to an Innovas report commissioned by mayor of London Boris Johnson, areas like renewable energy and low carbon building technologies are growing the economy and creating jobs. Despite difficult economic headwinds in Europe, the low carbon and environmental goods and services sector grew by more than four per cent during 2009-2010. Some 160,000 people were employed by the sector across 9,000 companies.

London is the strongest green region in the UK, it ranked on top of 13 of the 23 areas of the green economy. The capital scores particularly highly in waste management, carbon finance, solar/photovoltaics and geothermal. Carbon finance is worth almost £6bn (US$9.5 billion) to the London economy and involves nearly 23,000 people employed across 2,000 businesses. The capital accounts for 97 percent of the UK’s carbon finance market.

Part of London’s success in the green market is due to their goal of delivering 25 percent of the city’s energy from decentralised sources by 2025.

The City of London is the centre of carbon finance and this helps it take the largest share of the green sector. Dagenham & Barking and Westminster also have high shares of the green market because of their strengths in geothermal energy, waste management, alternative fuel vehicles and building technologies.