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Green jobs to total more than 1m by 2017

The number of jobs in the green sector has been forecast to rise to more than a million by 2017.

Prime minister Gordon Brown on Monday (June 29th) pledged to create 400,000 more jobs in the environmental sector over the next eight years.

Mr Brown claimed that four new commercial-scale carbon capture and storage plants are in the pipeline, along with plans to build up to an additional 1,000 wind turbines in 2009-10.

Simon Walker, chief executive of the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, commented: "I am convinced that this scheme can make a real difference provided it is implemented with the urgency that it deserves.

Meanwhile, Energy minister Lord Hunt recently revealed that the creation of offshore wind farms in the UK could create up to 70,000 new jobs over the next few years.

He argued that investment in the UK's renewable energy sector could help deliver annual revenues of up to £8 billion in the future.