‘Green’ economy is real but needs a push

‘The green economy’ is an often-used but rarely defined term.  While many understand that the term refers to the economic sector that produces goods and services with an environmental benefit, its precise size, shape, and contours are vague at best.  Now, the Brookings Institution has compiled with the R&D company Battelle a report analyzing the green sector, whiich employed 2.7 million people in 2010, or about 2% of the American workforce.  Compare this to the health care sector, which employs 13.8 million people, or 10.2%, the fossil fuels sector (2.4 million jobs) and the biosciences sector (1.4 million jobs).  The clean sector is growing, but held back by policy gaps that restrict demand, woefully inadequate financing, and poor support for innovation.  One solution would be to scale up the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program.  The green economy is real and growing, but needs encouragement. GR