Regional sustainability initiatives: the growth of green jobs in Australia

There is no doubt that one of the fastest growing international industry ‘sectors’ is environmental goods and services. The size of the annual global environment market is estimated at around A$1,000 billion (Department of Industry, Science and Resources, 2000, p. 21). There are many cases of extraordinary growth in ‘green jobs’ in recent years. For example, worldwide demand for organic agricultural produce has grown 20% every year for the last 10 years, and is anticipated to grow from US$11billion in 1997 to US$100billion by 2006 (McCoy and Parlevliet, 1998). Data presented in the Sustainable Energy Policy Green Paper (Department of Primary Industries and Energy, 1996) predict the world demand for renewable energy to grow by 82% in the period 1990 to 2020. This article reviews the current state of knowledge about green jobs in Australia. It draws some initial conclusions about what is likely to ‘drive’ worldwide green job generation in the foreseeable future, and then reviews recent work that examines the implications for Australia. The main focus, however, is a recent Western Australian industry survey undertaken to determine the current nature, and future potential, of green jobs in that State. The article concludes with a range of policy recommendations for government