Crawley’s Net Zero economy

Aviation has been a blessing to Crawley’s jobs market for many years, but during the pandemic we saw the other side of this. The consequence of having so many people employed by a single sector was that when that sector had to shut down for months, local families suffered a bigger hit than anywhere else in the country.

This experience served to underline the huge risk of having an economy too dependent upon any one form of activity. Unfortunately, COVID-19 is far from the only risk facing the aviation sector and given that most proposals for enabling the sector to continue to grow while achieving the 2050 net zero target remain entirely hypothetical, Crawley will remain more vulnerable to any shock to the industry than any other part of the UK.

Consequently, over recent years, we have been working to diversify the local economy in order to reduce this risk, with the biggest focus being on bringing green industries into Crawley, as these are set to grow over the same airlines are required to reduce carbon emissions.

Working to realise this has been a mixed experience, but it was gratifying to see a recent report published which demonstrated that Crawley is already one of the top 100 places in the country for green jobs. While growing from a low base, such jobs already provide 3.8% of Crawley’s Gross Value Added and employ 2,468 people locally.

The net zero economy not only has a faster growth rate than the wider economy, but already generates more than the average, with the average net zero job generating over £114k in economic activity, compared to £73k generated by jobs in the wider economy.

It’s not enough if we are going to diversify the economy and hit net zero, particularly given the huge potential we have to offer in logistics and engineering, but it’s a start and a good start at that.