Clean Energy Canada, a think-tank at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, commissioned a study to try to paint the first real picture of an industry it feels nobody knows much about. It did so because they believe the information is critically important to the future both in terms of climate change and the economy. The study has recently been completed, and a report was released. What it reveals is that Canada’s clean-energy sector is growing faster than the economy as a whole and is rivaling some of the more well-known industries for jobs.
“Other countries actually keep this data and Canada doesn’t,” said executive director of Clean Energy Canada, Merran Smith during an announcement in Vancouver, on December 5, 2018. Smith also spoke about the provincial government’s CleanBC plan aimed at reducing climate pollution.
According to Smith, there’s a lot of talk going on about the clean-technology sector, but clean energy encompasses more than high-tech firms making hydrogen fuel cells and electric cars. It includes everything from the production and transmission of renewable electricity to transit workers and construction workers making buildings more energy-efficient. That’s why the report even includes a hydroelectric-dam operator, a bus driver, and the person who installs a high-efficiency furnace, for example, in Clean Energy Canada’s job count.
Nearly 300,000 Canadians were directly employed in clean energy in 2017 in total. That’s nearly 100,000 more than Statistics Canada data said worked in mining, quarrying, and oil-and-gas extraction, the study concluded. In other words, there are 7.5 times as many people working in clean energy as in forestry and logging!
The purpose of the report is to present Canadians just how big a piece of the economic pie clean energy represents. Smith said:
We were surprised to find how big the sector is. What we found is that we’re missing more than half the picture when we talk about energy in Canada. We think of oil and gas, we think of pipelines, we think of Alberta, and we are missing this clean-energy sector which is in every province across the country.
The study concluded:
- Clean energy accounted for about 3% of Canada’s GDP in 2017, or around $57 billion. To compare, oil and natural gas contribute about 6% of Canada’s GDP; agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting account together for about 2.1% and the hotel and restaurant industry 2.3%.
- Clean energy grew almost 5% annually between 2010 and 2017; outpacing the 3.6% growth of the economy as a whole.
- The number of jobs in clean energy grew 2.2% a year between 2010 and 2017, compared to 1.4% for the total number of jobs in Canada.
- Investment in the industry went from $21 billion in 2010 to $35.3 billion in 2017.
“This is a good-news story for Canada,” Smith said. However, the country’s governments place too much attention on selling Canada’s natural resources and must do better at marketing Canada as a clean-energy giant as well. Smith says It would be smart if policies got Canadians more focused on using cleaner energy as it would go a long way to supporting the sector.
