by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has revealed that London's green economy is thriving and continuing to grow – despite the economic downturn.
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 under-performs 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 decentralized energy sources by 2025.
Personally I must say that being in the lead of selling carbon indulgences is not something to write home about as any carbon credits and so-called “carbon finance” is nothing else as indulgences.
Indulgences, to the uninitiated and those who did not pay much attention in history class, were the religious equivalents of the carbon credits allowing the sinner to commit further sins because he had paid for them in hard cash.
London could even be performing better in the green sector if we actually would be retrofitting existing homes with all the low-carbon gear that could so much improve our lives and the condition of the Planet.
Let's make London into a city that is alive again, including the center, with low-carbon and energy efficient building and homes and environmentally-friendly ones; with parks and open spaces, with community gardens and food growing where no one would think it possible.
Let's make London into the eco-city to be the envy of all cities and towns in the world.
© 2011
