Wastewater and waste management services accounted for the majority of business in the UK environmental goods and services sector, according to the latest set of figures released by the Office for National Statistics this week.

Table: Gross value added by EGSS activity in 2012. Source:ONS

The figures, which cover the period 2010-12, show that the environmental goods and services sector (EGSS) contributed £26.3 billion to the economy in terms of value added in 2012 (1.6% of GDP) and output from the EGSS in the UK grew by 9.1% from £50.8 billion to £55.4 billion The EGSS contributed 357,200 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs to total employment in 2012; an increase of 5.3% between 2010 and 2012.

In 2012, wastewater and waste management services contributed the largest value added and employment of the EGSS at £9.4 billion (35.8%) and 120,600 full-time equivalent jobs (33.8%). About four-fifths of this value added was through private corporations and a fifth was from general government activities.

“Water quantity management” (16.9% of EGSS values added) and “Recycling” (8.6% of EGSS values added) were the next major contributors at £4.4 billion and £2.2 billion respectively. Collectively, these activities accounted for over three-fifths (61.2%) of all EGSS value added.

The largest growth in employment among the EGSS activities between 2010 and 2012 was in the production of renewable energy (59.1%.

In other categories, between 2010 and 2012 output from resource management activities rose by 12.5% from £25.8 billion to £29.0 billion while environmental protection activities rose by 5.6% from £25.0 billion to £26.3 billion

However, in terms of value added the EGSS only grew by 1.5% between 2010 and 2012, while during the same period GDP grew by 6.2% suggesting that growth of the EGSS was lower compared with the whole economy.

In terms of future work, this year ONS has launched a survey on the low-carbon and renewable energy economy which aims to collect information from businesses on employment, investment, turnover, imports and exports of low-carbon and renewable energy activities.

ONS said that additional improvements are also required for ‘Water quantity management’ which currently includes not only resource management activities to minimise water losses and water reuses (considered part of the EGSS) but also services relating to the distribution, collection and treatment of water.

Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union which provides detailed statistics on the EU and member countries says it recognises that it is difficult to narrow the scope to exclude the distribution, collection and treatment of water, but future improvements may be possible once the resource management expenditure accounts (ReMEA) are further refined and completed.

One way in which ONS plan to improve this category in the immediate future is to consider the financial records of water companies to identify expenditure and investment (based on the formation of fixed capital (investment)) in water management services.

ONS is also in the process of collecting data on exports of EGS from the UK - this work is currently ongoing and initial estimates on exports in the EGSS are planned for the end of the year.