Discover the Firms Leading Chicago into its Green Economy Future

What does Chicago’s growing Green Economy look like? To better answer this question, the Green Economy Firms in the Chicago Region report looks at Chicago-area firms involved in the economic transition to cleaner, more sustainable practices. It identifies over 51,600 Green Economy firms in the Chicago MSA, groups them into clusters of related industries, and assesses sales and employment. The report is accompanied by an interactive dashboard that maps out firm locations in the region.

What are Green Economy Firms?

Based on a report by the Brookings Institution, Green Economy firms are defined as those falling under 86 North American Industry Classification Systems (NAICS) codes related to Clean Energy Production, Energy Efficiency, and Environmental Management. Green Economy Firms in the Chicago Region groups Green Economy firms into 15 clusters of related industries¹ and analyzes data from Mergent Intellect² on number of firms, sales volume, and number of employees in 2020.

Findings

When looking at total number of firms, the Green Economy was dominated by the Local Real Estate, Construction, and Development cluster, with 37,415 firms.

Sales associated with Green Economy firms were more evenly distributed among clusters, with the highest sales volumes being associated with the Electric Power Generation and Transmission and Automotives clusters.

The plurality of employees working for Green Economy firms were within the Local Real Estate, Construction, and Development cluster, though this cluster’s share of employees was not quite as high as its share of firms.

¹ Cluster Groupings based on U.S. Cluster Mapping: https://clustermapping.us/

²https://www.mergentintellect.com/