Editor’s note: This article was first published in August 2012. It contains a 2012 forecast of green job creation in Spain up to 2020; the projection period has ended. The references to this summer and the wildfire remark refer to the 2012 fire season in Spain.
An average of 125,000 jobs a year: that would be the first large-scale burst of job creation to help Spain make real progress out of the seemingly endless crisis that has been battering it for several years, and it has become the country’s new hope.
Today the press described this summer as one of the most devastating for wildfires in recent years. Yet the environment is emerging as a champion of employment, thanks to its enormous potential for creating jobs.
The International Labour Organization points out that there are currently between 400,000 and 500,000 green jobs, accounting for 2.2% of the total.
The magic figure of one million jobs is backed by data from Spain’s Sustainability Observatory (Observatorio de la Sostenibilidad) and the Biodiversity Foundation (Fundación Biodiversidad), which notes that society is more aware of the need to protect the environment, hence the rise in employment.
Renewable energy will be one of the fastest-growing sectors over the next few years, with an 81% increase on current levels. Another booming sector will be waste management, which is expected to reach 27,850 new jobs.
Sustainable transport will be another engine of employment, probably the fastest-growing of all, with 770,000 people, while retrofitting 25 million homes to improve their insulation and energy efficiency could generate just over a million new jobs.
Featured image: kallerna, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
