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The dramatic and sustained drop in the global oil price led to a certain amount of doom mongering around the cleantech sector. The fear, of course, was that cheaper fossil fuels would make clean energy investments less competitive.

Businesses need to open their eyes to the benefits of measuring and valuing natural capital says global leader for energy & cleantech Nathan Goode.

Nathan Goode on the outlook for renewables in 2015

Nathan Goode calls for a change of narrative in the sustainability debate.

Nathan Goode welcome growth opportunities extra government scrutiny brings

As the global economy slowly recovers its verve, so business leaders in the hospitality and tourism sector are looking at new ways to grow their operations. So says our International Business Report (IBR), which interviews around 150 senior executives in the sector globally every quarter.

Energy costs are a major concern for businesses in Italy: close to two in five business leaders expect rising energy costs to hinder growth over the next 12 months (38%) according to our Q1 International Business Report (IBR) results. This is above the global (35%) and EU (31%) averages and reflects the higher price of energy in Italy compared with the rest of Europe.

We asked the 3,500 business leaders who responded to our latest Grant Thornton International Business Report (IBR) a new question in Q4-2013: Do you expect rising energy costs to constrain the growth of business over the next 12 months?

The outlook for the cleantech sector looks to be improving. While the Climate Policy Initiative reported that global climate finance flows had plateaued at US$359bn in 2012, business growth indicators from our Q3 International Business Report (IBR) are positive, particularly as regards investment and R&D, although a shortage of talent remains a challenge

At a time when China and the EU are arguing over solar panel subsidies and shale gas has revolutionised the US – and perhaps soon the global – energy market, I was encouraged to see the general optimism amongst cleantech businesses in the Q2 update from our International Business Report (IBR).