Sizing up sustainability in the UK

In 2009, a number of research houses have attempted to quantify the size of sustainability in the UK. Here is a brief snapshot of some of their claims.

Spending

“UK spending on climate change & sustainability will top $5.3b in 2010 and grow to $8.4b in 2003” according to Verdantix report ‘Critical Moments: market size & forecast: climate change and sustainability spending (UK).’

Their research leads them to believe that the climate change and sustainability market will grow by 13% next year, and by 18% in the following year.

Corporate sustainability budgets

Around one fifth of the 354 respondents to Acre’s 2008/2009 CSR Salary Survey controlled budgets of £1m or more. Further, 50% work for FTSE 100 companies and 80% were based in London and the South East.

The study also found that 75% of corporate CSR teams have nine or fewer employees.

Corporate and employee interests

According to the May Day Carbon UK report, the result of a 1,695-person survey, corporate interest in sustainability needs a boost.

Over half of respondents do not know if their organisation is affected by the UK’s legally-binding Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC).

A third of the respondents do not think that their company has a green policy in place.

According to results from a sub-sample of 226 senior managers:
· 36% of organisations have audited their annual energy consumption
· 35% have set targets to reduce carbon emissions
· 30% measure their carbon emissions (over half of these fall within the manufacturing, engineering or utilities sector)
· 29% externally report carbon emissions
· 21% do not have climate change on their agenda

Sustainable investments

According to EIRIS, the size of Britain’s green and ethical retail funds reached £6.8b by the start of 2009. This excludes UK money invested outside of the UK or in offshore funds.

Commitment to global standards

British companies are active participants in global CSR institutions. For example, the UK currently has 212 global compact participants, 38 companies that published a GRI report in 2009 and 87 UNPRI signatories.

Job market

Last March Gordon Brown stated that the UK can expect 400,000 new environmental sector jobs over the next eight years. Factor in other sustainability jobs, and that’s a considerable estimate.

According to Acre Resource’s 2009 Carbon Salary Survey of 1157 climate change professionals worldwide, 28% of organisations employing people in climate change are headquartered in the UK. Although, this should not be taken at face value as the survey sample was not controlled and 20% of respondents are British.

In addition, anecdotal evidence supporting the rise of CSR and sustainability jobs is evident in the increasing number of UK postings on job boards published by well-known sources such as Acre Resources, the CSRchicks yahoo group and the Guardian.

Market demand

Consumer demand will be the topic of my next post. A few recent studies shed some light into this previously strongly biased research area.