As the UK government publishes its annual Environmental Accounts, Jim McClelland questions the value and validity of including sector data so old it is already history.
Gen Z lives by the minute. Stock markets whipsaw day-by-day. TV episodes drop every week. Moons wane monthly. Government figures, however, appear ageless; and useless.
This summer has seen publication of the official UK Environmental Accounts: 2026. They are designed to measure three things: the contribution of the environment to the economy; impact of economic activity on the environment; and responses to environmental issues.
In theory, these figures should provide us with a timely eco stock-take, a sustainability snapshot. However, not all the data is equally current. In fact, some of them are downright old.
It would be illegal for a company to file its numbers as late as these figures
Jim McClelland Sustainable futurist, editor, journalist and speaker
Shorthand for the green economy
Numbers included for the Environmental Goods and Services Sector (EGSS) date back to 2023, making them even more aged than the accompanying figures for emissions (2024).
EGSS offers a pretty useful shorthand for the green economy. It represents most of the major market segments driving the sustainability agenda in industry, utilities and manufacturing, helping deliver against targets for carbon reduction and net zero.
Its scope incorporates the likes of renewables and energy efficiency, water treatment, waste and recycling, plus some environmental services. It even spans across areas of conservation such as organic farming and responsible forest management.
The fact that the figures are so out of date is a problem. They are presented as part of the nation’s ‘accounts’ and yet it would be illegal for a company to file its numbers so late.
Three Prime Ministers later
On a positive note, they do reveal that there were 506,200 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs in EGSS in 2023, up by 3.2% compared with 2022. They also show the sector contributed some £54.2 billion in gross value added (GVA) to the UK economy… back in 2023.
2023 is old. The world has moved on since then: the UK has raced through three Prime Ministers; Donald Trump got himself re-elected President; and the AI revolution has begun its root-and-branch review of business and growth markets, upending expectations daily.
To be fair, the UK is not alone in late-filing. The most recent EGSS data from the EU is also for 2023. And it could be worse: the US does not even bother to post its numbers.
So, what does this data-lag tell us about environmental plans and priorities?
Dancing in the dark on data
Well, any policymakers hoping to shape industrial strategy based on EGSS data alone are clearly dancing in the dark. Their source material is plainly past its use-by-date.
Even official UK figures for green jobs published in March this year are provisional for 2024, with a footnote explaining that they use the exact same EGSS stats from 2023.
There are, though, fresher figures available for some of the individual market slices that together make up the EGSS pie. For instance, the government references multiple datasets for energy published at least quarterly, maybe even monthly. Annual totals for local authority waste management, on the other hand, come out roughly in line with financial reporting schedules, making the records for 2024/25 the latest on show.
Maybe, the sheer rate of expansion and segmentation of EGSS markets means that it is no longer that useful or important to try to view the sector as a whole these days?
Given the limited time and resource available to government statisticians, their efforts are arguably better directed elsewhere. Perhaps a blurry historical perspective is all we need?
Sector still short of confidence
Any pitch for environmental issues becoming so much a part of business-as-usual – and EGSS segments so mature as to be fully-fledged industries and markets in their right – would be more persuasive if the argument for the green economy had already been won.
Sadly, even die-hard sustainability champions know it has not. This is despite the fact that forecasts for the net zero part of the UK economy, for example, show it growing three times faster than the rest, with 400,000 extra jobs promised in clean energy alone by 2030.
More than 10 years on from the Paris Agreement and almost 30 since the Kyoto Protocol, sustainable business is still somehow stuck in the growing-up phase. It has yet to truly prove itself to the global public – like a hit-and-miss teenager, sometimes brash, often shy.
This fundamental insecurity is why the reassurance provided by broad sector-wide stats still matters for players in environmental goods and services in need of a confidence boost.
It would be great if we had collectively outgrown EGSS as a label, but we have not. There remains a real requirement for some official figures that will serve to evidence our growth, worth and value as a sector.
We still need that data; and it must be newer, and better.
Jim McClelland is a sustainable futurist, editor, journalist and speaker
