SAN FRANCISCO—A new report, released Tuesday, confirmed that the Bay Area is a statewide leader in clean economy, in terms of both jobs and investments.
The 2013 California Green Innovation Index reported on trends in California’s clean economy and successful policies that helped boost it.
In its fifth yearly report, the organization Next 10 tracked the progress of the state in its transition to a more resource-efficient, low-carbon economy.
Next 10, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, focuses in its work on innovation in technology and policies that can help to protect the environment, allow economic growth, and enable a better life for Californians.
A clean economy for Next 10 means not only economic activities relating to sectors such as energy, green building, and recycling, but also business services, and finance in clean economy.
According to the report, California continues to be a national leader. Most investments in clean economy are made here, and California has more clean technology patents than any other state—for example, during 2010 and 2011, 45 percent of all U.S. solar patents came out of the Golden State.
In addition, 14.5 percent of California’s energy in 2011 was produced from renewable sources—three times the national average. In the past five years, it has increased by 3.8 percent.
In 2011, more than 50,000 Bay Area residents had green jobs, with the highest concentration of those jobs being in the sectors of energy generation, energy infrastructure, green building, and advanced materials.
With this, the Bay Area sets a statewide record.
“The Bay Area (including Silicon Valley) accounted for the largest share of clean economy jobs (30 percent) as of January 2011,” the report states.
Though the Bay Area leads in clean jobs, other regions are catching up at a rapid pace. For example, while the Bay Area had a 6 percent growth in employment in clean economy over the past decade (2001–2011), the San Joaquin Valley increased green employment by 57 percent during that time.
Silicon Valley is also leading the state in green venture capital investment, reaching a record high of more than $2.6 billion in 2011, and $1.1 billion in 2012, accounting for 43 percent of all investments in the area. The San Francisco region comes in third in terms of investment in green investment in California, at $400 million.
