UK net zero businesses contributed more than £36bn to the economy last year, according to research by CBI Economics, accounting for 1.3% of total UK gross value added. The share now exceeds that of the building and engineering sectors and of scientific research and development.
The research, commissioned by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, analysed 23,500 active net zero companies and paints a picture of a sector that is both substantial and unusually productive.
Productive, well-paid work
Some 308,000 jobs are directly attributable to net zero companies, representing 0.9% of total UK employment. On average those jobs are 48% more productive than the UK norm, generating £119,300 in economic value per full-time role and paying wages 11% above the national average.
Every £1 of economic value generated by these businesses produces a further £1.85 across the wider economy, through supply chains, services and the spending that follows well-paid work. Few sectors can match that multiplier at scale.
The report also quantifies how those gains spread. For every job created directly within a net zero company, additional roles follow in installation, maintenance, logistics and professional services, multiplying the effect across the regions where the sector is strongest.
A small business story
More than 96% of the companies analysed are small and medium-sized enterprises, underlining the strong role smaller firms play in driving activity across net zero supply chains. Almost half have been established within the past decade, and 20% launched in the past five years, reflecting how quickly markets in clean energy and environmental services have expanded.
Renewable energy accounts for just under a third of the companies, almost double the size of the waste management and recycling sector, the second-largest subsector. The largest technologies in the UK pipeline are battery storage, offshore wind and solar photovoltaics.
The sector’s geography is broadening too. Scotland’s central belt, the West Midlands and Yorkshire are identified as net zero hotspots, with industrial and energy-focused regions showing the highest relative importance of the sector.
The sectoral spread is equally broad. Beyond renewables, the analysis points to strength in building technologies, low-carbon consultancy and advisory services, and heat pumps and other renewable heating, a reminder that net zero now touches most parts of the economy.
The investment question
CBI chief economist Louise Hellem summarised the report’s central argument: “The politics of net zero may be fragmenting, but the economic case has never been clearer.” The comment was aimed at a global backdrop in which several large institutions have rowed back on their commitments.
The report’s warning is directed at policy rather than business: the private capital already mobilised into renewables will be at risk without a stable, long-term framework. For companies investing in the sector, that stability is the difference between planning a decade ahead and planning a year ahead.
For business leaders, the report reframes a debate often cast in purely political terms. The numbers make clear that net zero is already an employment and investment story with measurable economic weight, whichever way the wider argument moves.