The reader should bear this in mind when reviewing the results presented here. Just under one-fifth of the companies are subsidiaries of a larger group. Parent companies are overwhelmingly located in Europe, followed by North America. It appears from this that ownership of the world renewable energy supplies and services sector is skewed toward Europe, even when operations are in another region. This finding should be independent of any possible bias in the underlying sample towards European based companies.
Many companies are active in more than one area or renewable energy, and typically in three.
The total number of people employed worldwide in renewable energy supplies and services is probably greater than 40,000. International trade is clearly extremely important with over half of all companies being involved in exports. The renewable energy supplies and services sector is experiencing growth both in terms of sales and employment in all parts of the world and in all activity sectors. Regionally, Asia and North America appear to be growing at above average rates in terms of sales value with Europe just below average. Companies active in photovoltaics appear to be leading the way in terms of sales growth with sectors such as geothermal, heat recovery and particularly wave and tidal growing much more slowly.