Small and medium-sized businesses are creating more ‘green jobs’, according to a new EU survey. According to a Eurobarometer survey on ‘SMEs, resource efficiency and green markets’, green jobs are largely created in SMEs as opposed to large firms.

In 2012, one in eight employees of small and medium-sized firms had a green job or almost 13% of all SME jobs. Whereas in large firms, it was only one in 33, around 3% of all large company jobs.

More than a third (37%) of EU SMEs have at least one full or part-time green employee, suggested the survey, which also predicts this figure will rise by a rate of 35% in the next 2 years.

Antonio Tajani, the European Commission’s Vice-President who is responsible for Industry and Entrepreneurship said: “I am happy to see that SMEs are taking on this huge untapped potential which will pay off with more innovation, more competitive SMEs and more jobs.”

But he added there is still a lot of work to do: “Only very few European SMEs extend their green business to foreign markets. Knowing that the EU makes up roughly one third of the world market for environmental industries this reveals a huge potential for SMEs to grow.”