Environmental policy encourages innovation and creates employment. The facts: environmental protection currently provides employment for some 1.5 million people in Germany, around 3.5 per cent of the workforce, and this is an upward trend. In 2003  Germany led the world in the export of goods and products for environmental protection, with sales worth 31 billion euros, accounting for an 18.8 per cent share of the world market, and all estimates predict that it maintained this position again in 2004. Germany also leads the field in Europe in the number of patent applications for innovative environmental technologies. German companies are world leaders in the development and manufacture of wind turbines and solar panels. Although often repeated, the claims that environmental protection inhibits innovation and destroys jobs have no foundation. On the contrary: those who present such antiquated arguments are missing out on the opportunity to make a positive contribution to the lives of people here and elsewhere ion the world and to open up even more economic prospects for German companies.