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Water management in NRW: Growth despite the challenges of climate change!
The 2024 Environmental Economic Report shows that water infrastructure in North Rhine-Westphalia is growing significantly despite the smaller market segment.
Water management in NRW: Growth despite the challenges of climate change!
A hidden powerhouse of the environmental economy is flourishing in North Rhine-Westphalia: the water management submarket! Despite its comparatively small size, the water, wastewater and flood protection infrastructure segment shows impressive dynamics. With a whopping 64,000 employees and a value creation of 6.27 billion euros, it is one of the largest market segments in the environmental industry. This emerges from the current environmental economics report 2024 from the NRW Ministry of the Environment, which was prepared by Prognos AG and the Institute for Ecological Economic Research.
The alarming weather extremes, such as heavy rain and longer dry periods, are increasing the pressure on the infrastructure and will further increase its importance in the future. The report highlights that the gross value added in the areas of water and wastewater management and water extraction and treatment is also significant: 158 million euros and 2.716 billion euros, with 2,000 and 22,000 employees respectively. Growth in these areas is between 2.2 and 5.5 percent from 2010 to 2023.
Patent strength in NRW
North Rhine-Westphalia also shines with impressive innovative strength: with a share of 19 percent of Germany-wide patent applications in the water industry, the state takes second place. The variety of topics ranges from infrastructure to water and wastewater treatment, making the region a hotspot for technological developments.
Overall, the annual gross value added in the North Rhine-Westphalian environmental economy rose by 9.2 billion euros to almost 52.8 billion euros between 2020 and 2023. The number of people employed in this sector grew by 21,600 to around 599,000, which shows that 6.2 percent of employees in North Rhine-Westphalia work in the environmental sector. With annual growth of 4.3 percent, the environmental economy outperforms the overall economy in North Rhine-Westphalia, which only records 3.7 percent growth.