Market intelligence vendor Global Insight has been increasing its tracking of the energy sector in Europe, as well as coverage of environmentally-sensitive industries like the automotive and transport sectors.

A new Global Insight service, the European Regulatory Outlook for Alternative Fuels, provides management briefings for those responsible for developing automotive products or automotive-related services.

European Regulatory Outlook for Alternative Fuels will provide background on underlying political debates and legislative developments that affect the industry across the European Union, with particular focus on six member states – the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden.

The service will closely track the regulatory situation with regard to alternative fuels, providing overviews by the four main fuel types (biodiesel, ethanol, CNG, and LPG).

The service is offered under the generic title Sustainable Mobility, which is defined as providing for "the safe freedom of movement for people and goods in ways that use renewable sources of energy while creating no adverse impacts on the Earth and its environment".

Current projects include research into potential investments and/or initiatives that could reduce car-related CO2 emissions, and a paper on the likelihood of the various alternative powertrain technologies achieving technical and market success in the 2007/08 to 2025 timeframe.

The new initiatives come in the wake of the appointment of three senior energy sector experts – Scott Foster, Andrew Ellis and David Callanan – all co-founders of European analysis and forecasting firm ECON Energia.

All three have senior roles within Global insight dvisions: Foster is now managing director of Global Power, Ellis is a principal with the European Energy Practice, and Callanan is managing director of business development for the Energy Practice team.