AI Analysis: In-house research and development activities related to the environmental and clean technology products by industry

Executive Summary

Statistics Canada Table 38100181 tracks in-house R&D spending on environmental and clean technology products across 72 Canadian industries from 2020 to 2023, revealing that while most industries dedicate a small share to environmental R&D (median of just 2.2%), participation is growing steadily. The share of industries reporting R&D expenditures rose from 14.4% in 2020 to 17.9% in 2023, though the distribution remains heavily right-skewed, with a few high-investing sectors pulling the national mean to 9.99%. Correlation analysis suggests that industries engaging in environmental R&D tend to invest across multiple activity types simultaneously, pointing to integrated rather than siloed clean technology strategies.

Key Findings

• R&D participation grew by 3.5 percentage points over the study period, with industries reporting environmental R&D expenditures increasing from 14.4% in 2020 to 17.9% in 2023.
• The distribution of R&D values is strongly right-skewed: the median is just 2.2% while the mean is 9.99%, and 50% of all 3,782 valid records fall within a narrow 0–8% interquartile range.
• The mean annual R&D activity percentage showed a modest but consistent upward trend, rising from 9.49% in 2020 to 10.55% in 2023, suggesting gradual sector-wide growth in environmental investment.
• Approximately 12.4% of records (468 out of 3,782) were flagged as outliers using the IQR method, with values above 20% considered anomalous, highlighting significant variation across industries and activity types.
• The share of industries with no R&D expenditures declined from 85.6% to 82.1% between 2020 and 2023, while those reporting activity in at least one category grew from 9.9% to 12.0%.
• Correlation analysis of 2023 data across 17 activity types and 72 NAICS industries shows predominantly positive cross-activity correlations, indicating that high-investing industries tend to pursue broad environmental R&D portfolios rather than focusing on a single area.
• Around 23% of the dataset's 4,896 records (~1,114) have missing values, and data reliability varies across industries as indicated by quality status codes A through E and x.