Industries Included in the Australian Built Environment Sector

The built environment encompasses the entirety of the human built world. The built environment sector is the collection of industries responsible for producing, managing and maintaining those buildings and structures.

Output of Sixteen Industries

The method used to measure the size and extent of the Australian BES is to collect the data for output and employment for sixteen relevant industries and sub-industries. These are industries with a direct, physical relationship with the built environment, and the data is provided in the Australian Bureau of Statistics annual publication Australian Industry (ABS 8155). Australian Industry excludes the finance industry and public sector, but includes non-profits in industries like health and education and government businesses providing water, sewerage and drainage services. These are combined with private sector business to get a total for the selected industries, and these industries account for around two-thirds of GDP.  

Industries are groups of firms with common characteristics in products, services, production processes and logistics, subdivided by the ANZSIC version of the Standard Industrial Classification into a four-level structure. The highest level is alphabetically coded divisions such as Agriculture, forestry and fishing (A), Manufacturing (C) and Information and communication (J). The classification is then organized into two-digit subdivisions, three-digit groups, and four-digit classes. ANZSIC codes are therefore two, three and four-digit numbers representing industries, which are firms with shared characteristics. 

Industry value added (IVA) is the estimate of an industry’s output and its contribution to gross domestic product (GDP), and is broadly the difference between the industry’s total income and total expenses. Employment and IVA in current dollars for many, but not all, industries is in Australian Industry. The data is presented for the industries included at varying levels for their subdivisions and classes, with the most recent issue for 2017-18.