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Briefs

The Green Knowledge Economy

This Brief outlines a new model for sustainable economic development that integrates two paradigms – the Knowledge Economy and the Green Economy. We refer to this model as the “Green Knowledge Economy” (GKE).

The GKE model reflects emerging UK and EU policy trends. The Coalition Government is committed to building ‘a low carbon and eco-friendly economy’ – a Green Economy. The goal of the EU 2020 Strategy is to make Europe ‘a competitive and greener knowledge-based economy’. These long-term policy directions are evident in North America and other regions of the world. Within countries, cities and regions are actively planning ahead for ‘carbon-free prosperity’, and marketing themselves to investors and citizens as ‘green cities’, ‘eco-towns’ and ‘low-carbon economic areas’....

You can download the Brief here.

Does Britain have the skills for a green industrial revolution?

The UK Government has made the idea of a ‘green industrial revolution’ one of the cornerstones of its economic policies. Low carbon and environmental goods and services are expected to generate 400,000 jobs over the next eight years (BERR, 2009). With unemployment predicted to carry on rising for another two years, these new job opportunities are clearly priceless.

This second issue of Geoeconomics Briefs shows that Britain could miss out on the ‘green industrial revolution’ owing to the decline of its skilled manual workforce at Level 3 (craft and technician jobs – plumbers, fitters, electricians, maintenance engineers, etc) in manufacturing production and construction. Evidence to support this argument is based on an up-dated analysis of the individual records of the Labour Force Survey for 2000 and 2008.  

You can download the Brief here.