Executive summary

With its Viksit Bharat vision for 2047, India is looking to leverage multiple sunrise sectors, from semiconductors to AI data centres to pharmaceuticals to fintech. Investing in a green economy is an equally important opportunity to remain ahead of the curve in a geoeconomically disruptive global order.

Our research suggests that, a green economy can unlock

• USD 1.1 trillion (INR 97.7 lakh crore) in market value in 2047
• 48 million jobs by 2047
• USD 4.1 trillion (INR 360 lakh crore) in investments by 2047

A green economy for India cuts across many sectors—from manufacturing and deploying renewable energy to electric vehicles; from circularity of plastics and construction debris to making sustainable aviation fuel from spent cooking oil; from sustainable tourism to new-age biofibres and biopolymers from crop residues—the possibilities are immense. Together, the green economic sectors can also abate ~2.3 billion metric tonnes of carbon emissions, which is ~77.6 per cent of India’s total carbon emissions of 2024 (~2.96 billion metric tonnes).

As India grows, that growth can be future-proof and green. For example, packaging, tourism, transport, semiconductors, and construction are all fast-growing sectors in India. These sectors could be future-proofed with greener solutions like bio-based packaging, eco and agri tourism, zero-emission vehicles, e-waste recycling, and sustainable construction materials.

A green economy enables a fundamental rethink of not just the energy we consume, but also the materials we use and the designs we employ in every activity. Across economic sectors, there are opportunities to go green. This report identifies 36 such green opportunities or value chains (refer to Figure ES 1) across three thematic areas: (i) energy transition, (ii) circular economy, and (iii) bio-economy and nature-based solutions. These areas were identified for three main reasons:

• Increasing interest and momentum amongst industry and start-ups.
• Emerging government policy support.
• Widening green opportunities across the economic spectrum, from large industries to microenterprises, and from primary sectors to tertiary ones.

Within these three areas, we shortlisted value chains considering:

• Suitability to India’s geographic and natural resource context.
• Strategic advantage to improve exports or substitute imports.
• The potential to create economic opportunity (jobs, market, investment).

Figure ES1. Green value chains shortlisted for this report

Source: Authors’ analysis

By no means are these 36 value chains an exhaustive list. More opportunities are available in the green economy, and many more are likely to emerge in the near future. These areas and value chains were chosen to expand our collective imagination of the green economy and its potential in India. At present, many of these emerging opportunities remain overlooked by policymakers, economists, industry leaders, investors, and civil society. This first-of-its-kind report aims to expand our perspectives and deepen our understanding of the wide-ranging possibilities offered by the green economy.

To estimate how each of the green value chains could contribute to India’s Viksit Bharat ambition by 2047 and build evidence on the scale of these opportunities, we measured the jobs, market, and investment (JMI) opportunity. We also identified what’s holding these respective value chains back today, and what actionable next steps could overcome challenges in scaling them up. Table ES1 summarises the JMI for each of the three thematic areas.

Table ES1. Cumulative jobs, market and investment potential of green sectors by 2047

Source: Authors’ analysis 

Unpacking the employment potential of a green economy

The green economy could create diverse and distributed employment opportunities across urban, peri-urban, and rural areas, and across skill levels. Almost half of the ~48 million green jobs¹ (FTE) would be contributed by bio-economy and nature-based solutions, enabling the much-needed economic and livelihood diversification in India’s agriculture-dominated rural economy. Within this sector, bio-inputs for agriculture, agroforestry, and wetland management would be the large job-drivers, followed by nutraceuticals, engineered bamboo products, and sustainable tourism. Figure ES2 illustrates the jobs driven by a green economy.

Value chains in energy transition would be the second-largest set of green employers, creating 16.7 million jobs by 2047. Almost 57 per cent of these jobs would be in electric vehicle manufacturing (largest driver of jobs in a green economy), followed by renewable energy generation (both solar and wind), distributed renewables (2.1 million jobs), and energy storage (1.2 million jobs).

The circular economy would employ another 8.4 million people by 2047. Most of these jobs (7.7 million) are driven by solid waste management—given the large volume and associated large human resource requirements across waste collection, sorting, and aggregation.

Deep-diving into the market opportunity of a green economy

Much like the jobs, the USD 1.1 trillion (INR 97.7 lakh crore) market opportunity of a green economy is also fairly diverse. Both energy transition and bio-economy contribute significantly to the market opportunity, with circular economy contributing about 10 per cent of the market opportunity.

At the value chain level, green mobility, RE generation, and agroforestry and sustainable forest management collectively contribute about half the market opportunity. Respective value chain contributions are detailed in Figure ES3

Looking into the investment potential of India’s green economy

Given its capex-heavy nature, the bulk (almost 90 per cent) of the USD 4.1 trillion (INR 360 lakh crore) investments needed in a green economy get concentrated in the energy transition sector, at USD 3.79 trillion (INR 329.2 lakh crore).

Across the green economy value chains, there is a spectrum from capital-intensive to labourintensive opportunities. Renewable energy generation, renewable energy manufacturing, green mobility manufacturing, energy storage, and green hydrogen are capital-intensive. Investment per direct job in these sectors typically exceeds ~USD 215,000 (INR 1.9 crore) per job, with some segments like renewables and EV manufacturing approaching or surpassing ~USD 225,000–340,000 (INR 2–3 crore) per job in the present modelling. However, these value chains would likely create a greater share of high-value, high-skilled jobs.

Several bio-economy and nature-based solution (NbS) value chains—notably bioinputs, wetlands restoration, agroforestry, and distributed renewable energy (DRE) for livelihoods—create large numbers of jobs at very low capital per job (fractions of INR 1 crore per job). These activities are typically geographically dispersed, often rural, and require complementary investments in training, aggregation platforms, quality assurance, and market access to raise livelihoods and productivity. Furthermore, they generate employment at scale in rural and peri-urban areas and can absorb lower- and mid-skilled labour. Figure ES4 shows the investment potential of several value chains.

The net employment effect of the green economy is a combination of additional employment (new jobs created) and transition (existing workers moving from carbonintensive activities). Manufacturing and grid-scale energy deployment value chains, such as renewables, storage and EV components, will combine both transition and additionality—some workers and capabilities can be redeployed from incumbent industries, but domesticising component supply chains and building new project pipelines will yield net new employment. By contrast, many bio-economy and nature-based solutions value chains are primarily additional livelihoods that diversify and augment rural incomes rather than directly displace fossil-fuel jobs. The circular economy (solid waste and other waste streams) is already seeing an upswing in jobs, albeit the majority are informal in nature. The jobs presented in our report are in addition to the existing jobs.

 Women in India’s green economy

India’s development goals need 400 million women in the workforce by 2047. However, considering the current growth rate of women in the labour force, the number is expected to reach only 145 million. In the context of the green economy, we discuss the roles women are currently occupying in each sector and suggest measures to boost their participation.

The key characteristics of women’s employment in green value chains are: (i) women’s participation is more dominant in early stages of value chains, where pay is lower and physical labour is greater; (ii) their participation is inversely affected by the remoteness of the job, especially for renewable energy installations; and (iii) the percentage of women entrepreneurs is far lower, with their overall (green and non-green sectors) participation at a mere 14 per cent (MoSPI 2013). While some challenges, like travelling to remote locations, stem from sociological concerns, certain others, like wages and low entrepreneurship, are structural. Accordingly, Chapter 4 offers actionable recommendations to improve overall women’s participation and employment in a green economy.

Key challenges holding back the realisation of a green economy

While the green economy has a vast potential to contribute to India’s economic development, a set of structural challenges holds back the realisation of this potential. Each value chain has its own set of particular barriers to scale, but across them, a few structural and common ones stand out. Here we discuss the common challenges that hold back several of the green sectors, and how they can be overcome:

• High capex, high cost of financing, and limited economies of scale make it difficult for the early-stage green alternatives to be market viable.
  
  Many of the green sectors are capital-intensive (especially in energy transition, but also in manufacturing-led value chains such as bio-based packaging, engineered bamboo, etc). Thus, financing becomes critical to seed and scale these value chains. Moreover, given their early market maturity stages, the risk perceptions among financiers are higher, limiting the accessibility of affordable finance. Without affordable finance, these value chains struggle to scale up, hindering economies of scale and learning efficiencies, often keeping the costs of green alternatives higher than the incumbent grey solutions2 . However, over the last decade, we have seen several green opportunities reverse this concern via strong procurement signals that lead to generating market demand, unlocking financing, and enabling economies of scale to kick in. From solar energy, to batteries, to LEDs, to electric vehicles— each has transitioned from being three to four times more expensive than the incumbent to now outcompeting them. We would likely see similar cost curves for many other emerging green solutions if procurement signals can unlock the early market demand. To spur the demand for green sectors, India must leverage previously successful approaches such as public procurement (e.g. for LEDs via the UJALA scheme), procurement or blending mandates (e.g. via renewable purchase obligations and bioethanol blending targets), budget-neutral tax breaks (e.g. accelerated depreciation in very early stages of renewables), and viability gap funding (e.g. for battery energy storage systems).
   
• Supply chain bottlenecks in the green sectors hinder manufacturing abilities.
  
  Green sectors struggle with three different supply chain issues for their raw material inputs.
  
  First, many sectors in energy transition, such as solar, batteries, and green hydrogen, are dependent on imports for their raw materials and critical components, making these sectors vulnerable to geopolitical and geoeconomic risks. In the short term, securing bilateral partnerships and joint ventures with international companies can help, but the medium to long-term strategy should focus on indigenisation of the technology with greater investments in fundamental R&D and innovation via deep and outcome-oriented industry-academia partnerships.
  
  Second, many sectors in the circular economy struggle with high costs of collection and aggregation, and competition for high-value materials with the informal sector, often leading to underutilisation of the recycling capacity. Formalisation of the workforce in the circular economy sectors, via stronger compliance enforcement, would not just help the sector economically, but would also help improve the occupational conditions and wages for the workers in the sector.
  
  Third, some bioeconomy sectors currently struggle with variability in the quality and availability of the feedstocks, owing to seasonality, the intrinsic (but valuable) regional biodiversity, and weather/climate impacts. Investment in R&D and innovation towards bio-processing to enable intake for variable feedstocks could help overcome these supply chain challenges.
   
• Limited investment in R&D and innovation for the green sectors.
  
  Investments in R&D and innovation are generally lower in India than in other countries that lead in innovation. Low investments in R&D in green sectors make India particularly vulnerable to being economically uncompetitive globally in the future, as green becomes the norm. Securing technological competitive advantages in emerging green sectors needs a significant scale-up in both fundamental and applied R&D and innovation. This can be addressed by incentivising private sector investments in the green sectors via matching grants or tax breaks on R&D investments.  
   
• Lack of a trained workforce for green jobs of today and the future.
  
  Several opportunities—from small hydropower deployment, lithium-ion battery recycling, and floating solar photovoltaic—face a challenge in the form of a limited skilled workforce. This limitation is in both formal and informal roles. Value chains like pumped storage hydropower deployment and floating solar photovoltaic require highly technical skills such as engineering, designing and project development. Similarly, the manufacturing of electric vehicles, small hydropower deployment, and lithium-ion battery recycling require a skilled labour workforce for manufacturing, installations and handling of specific waste like batteries. A few ways to unlock these opportunities are: establish sector-specific industry-academia/industry-ITI partnerships to co-design curricula and provide real-world training access; expand targeted skill certification programmes to cover emerging green sectors under the Skill Council for Green Jobs; and co-locate skill development institutes in specific green clusters.  
   
• Lack of standards for emerging green products limits early trust-building among investors and consumers. 
  
  While the emerging green sectors need space for innovation, they also need standards as guardrails to enhance buyers’ trust. Lack of standards creates confusion, inconsistency, and mistrust among consumers, businesses, and investors. For instance, inconsistent certification standards across bio-based packaging products create space for greenwashing. Missing quality standards for the quality of used cooking oil increases input costs for biodiesel manufacturers. Similarly, the lack of standards on ecotourism makes it difficult for investors and customers alike to trust the offerings. Standards for emerging technologies and products are a double-edged sword. Applied too early and too restrictively, they can limit innovation; but when applied at the underlying principle level, they offer necessary guardrails to build stakeholder trust, without stifling innovation. Civil society (including research bodies and think-tanks) can play a critical role in shaping and harmonising standards across the respective green value chains. The standards, as they get established, need to be complemented with easily accessible testing infrastructure, and timely awards of certification.  

Key recommendations for shaping a green economy paradigm

• Adopt a whole-of-nation approach: Green economic expansion should not be limited to a few districts, states, or special economic zones. Instead, the paradigm should become part of the economic planning at all levels—national, state, district and even gram panchayat— leveraging local resources and capabilities. For instance, seaweed cultivation and value-addition may be relevant and prioritised only for coastal districts, whereas e-waste recycling may require planning at the national and state levels—but both of these need the green economy paradigm to be embedded in the economic and development planning. An example is the Swachh Bharat Mission, where all levels of the government across departments and ministries got involved in finding ways to contribute to the mission.
• Implement a whole-of-government approach: Mainstreaming a green economy will not be the job of a single ministry or department, but will require coordinated action across them. For instance, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry alone cannot drive such a shift if green or climate taxonomy from the Ministry of Finance is not recognising the wider set of green opportunities. Our research highlights that promoting a typical value chain involves coordination among three to four ministries or departments, with one taking the lead. In the past, various missions and programmes, such as Samagra Shiksha, Namami Gange or Aspirational Districts, saw such coordinated efforts. Existing government schemes must be converged and evolved to further a green economy.
• Foster a whole-of-economy approach: A green economy paradigm must involve and work for economic actors across the spectrum—from multinational corporations to farmer producer organisations, from cooperatives to SMEs, and from large industries to self-help groups. It is an opportunity to catalyse all segments and sectors of the economy to establish forward and backward market linkages, minimise import reliance, and enhance supply chain resilience. For example, Industree, a for-profit company focused on natural fibres, works with bamboo growers and producer cooperatives to source bamboo and natural fibre-based products, which are sold to large brands like IKEA.

Finally, making the green economy people-centric will ensure widespread participation and ownership, empowering over a billion individuals to drive India’s journey toward becoming economically thriving, socially responsible, and environmentally resilient.