Module: Green economy
How big is Canada’s clean economy, and does prosperity mean more emissions?
Statistics Canada measures environmental and clean-technology (ECT) products as a satellite account of the national accounts. In 2024 the sector produced 3% of GDP and 1.7% of jobs, and those jobs paid well above average.
- ECT real GDP, 2024
- $70B
- 3% of the economy
- ECT jobs, 2024
- 363,094
- 1.7% of all jobs
- Average pay per ECT job
- $108,172
- 39% above the economy-wide $78,079
- ECT trade balance
- −$15.6B
- Canada imports more than it exports
A small sector that grew faster, then slowed
Real GDP growth: clean-tech sector versus the whole economy
Annual % change in real GDP. 2023 and 2024 are preliminary.
- Environmental & clean tech
- Whole economy
Income and emissions across provinces
The environmental Kuznets curve suggests pollution first rises with income, then falls. Within Canada, the pattern is dominated by resource extraction instead.
Are richer provinces dirtier? GDP and emissions per person, 2024
Each dot is a province, sized by population. The line is a least-squares fit across the points shown.
Correlation r = 0.83; slope = 1.16 t per $1,000 of GDP per person; R² = 0.68; n = 10
Concepts
Exercises
ECT jobs are 1.7% of employment but the sector is 3.0% of GDP. What does that imply about output per worker in the sector compared with the economy?
Check your reasoning
GDP share above employment share means higher output per worker, roughly 3.0 ÷ 1.7 ≈ 1.8 times the average, consistent with capital-intensive activities like hydroelectric generation.
In the province scatter, note the slope and R² with and without the territories. Explain why they change.
Check your reasoning
The territories have small populations, high living costs and diesel-heavy energy, so they sit away from the provincial pattern. Adding or removing a few influential points changes a small-sample regression a lot, which is why the fit is fragile.
Quebec and Alberta have very different emissions per person. Name two reasons that are about what is produced, and one about how energy is generated.
Check your reasoning
Production: Alberta’s oil sands and gas processing; Saskatchewan’s potash and agriculture versus Quebec’s service-heavy economy and aluminium smelting powered by hydro. Energy: Quebec’s grid is about 95% hydro, Alberta’s mostly natural gas.
The ECT sector runs a trade deficit. Should Canada subsidise domestic clean-tech manufacturing? Give one efficiency argument for and one against.
Check your reasoning
For: knowledge spillovers and learning-by-doing are positive externalities that private firms under-supply. Against: subsidies can be captured by firms that would have invested anyway, and importing cheaper clean technology can cut emissions faster per dollar.