The green economy in Vancouver is growing more than twice as fast as other sectors and represents cutting-edge opportunities for innovation and advancement. Greening all Vancouver workplaces and growing our green businesses will not only help to reduce our environmental footprint but will also contribute to a building a robust and sustainable economy, while we secure Vancouver’s place as the greenest city in the world.
Vancouver has about 12,000 green jobs in 8 sectors. These account for 3 percent of Vancouver’s jobs, in industries ranging from clean technology and education to green building and materials recovery; from local food and urban agriculture to transportation and infrastructure. Green jobs also include jobs in conventional businesses and traditional sectors that contribute to green processes or operations.
To define green we borrowed from the UNEP definition and focused on jobs that contribute towards restoring or preserving environmental quality, reduce energy, materials and water consumption, and minimize or altogether avoid generation of all forms of waste and pollution. We added local food to this definition as growing a local food economy is central to the vision to create a sustainable economy. We also ensure that opportunities in the green economy are attainable by all, and have identified that at least 10 percent of jobs present low barriers to employment and are accessible to residents facing language barriers, mental health issues or other challenges.
