November's top 10 engineering business stories

In November, the CBI predicted flat UK growth for the rest of this year, with a modest pick-up in growth during 2013.

According to its latest quarterly economic forecast, GDP growth will be zero per cent in 2012, slightly higher than its previous forecast of -0.3 per cent. This reflects the better-than-expected quarterly rate of growth in the third quarter (+1.0 per cent).

However, without the impact of one-off distortions in the fourth quarter, quarter-on-quarter growth is expected to be only marginally positive (+0.2 per cent).

A separate study, released by McGraw-Hill Construction in partnership with United Technologies, revealed that the ‘green’ building market is accelerating around the world. The study indicates a shift in the global construction market — which is now viewing green as a business opportunity rather than a niche area.

Companies said that their top reasons to do green business were client demand (35 per cent) and market demand (33 per cent) — two key business drivers of strategic planning. The next top reasons were lower operating costs (30 per cent) and branding advantage (30 per cent). In contrast, the number-one motivation in 2008 was a need to ‘do the right thing’ (42 per cent) and market transformation (35 per cent), followed by client and market demand.