Environmental technology “made in Austria”
Austria’s environmental technology industry is among the world’s most innovative green-tech industries today. It is growing at a faster rate than the entire Austrian economy.
In Austria, the turnover earned by green-tech enterprises, excluding service enterprises, has quintupled since 1993. In 2011, a turnover of over 8 billion euros was achieved. Of this, approximately 6 billion euros were generated from exports. During the 2007–2011 period, the sales figures of this branch increased by 8% annually, while those of the provision sector rose by 6.5%. With these figures, the environmental technology industry continues to rank markedly above the average of the product industry.
The export volume of Austria’s environmental technology industry increased by 2 billion euros between 2007 and 2011 – an average annual growth of 11%. Essentially, exports have seen two crucial developments since 2007: first, the share of exports in the overall revenue has risen and, secondly, providers are more active on non-European markets.
To reinforce this positive trend of turnover and employment growth in the environmental technology sector in the long term, both the “Master Plan for Environmental Technologies” and the “Master Plan for Green Jobs” were prepared.
The result is a true success; Austria is active in a high number of different fields of environmental technology, and we as a country are represented in every important branch of this field . Further, compared to the product industry, the green-tech industry sees above-average research intensity and a very high share of innovative companies (approx. 80%). Comprehensive training and further training programmes (such as klima:aktiv) raise the level of qualification in environmental technology and give the sector a competitive edge. In addition, the “Export Initiative Environmental Technology” of the Federal Ministry and the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber is heading in this direction. This helps to open up new markets and enhance the visibility of Austrian environmental technologies on an international level.