Not only is environmental business big business, but information about environmental business is no small beer either. Got that? Good.

Research company IHS has got out its chequebook and pen and delivered $43.5 million to buy two other green software providers Dolphin Software and Environmental Software Providers or ESP to its friends and those who like acronyms.

Dolphin sells software to help you manage your chemicals and compliance, as well as environmental reporting software. It cost $23.5 million.

ESP sells software to help you manage corporate-wide sustainability programs including greenhouse gas management, air, water, and waste management, internal and regulatory compliance assurance incident management and management of emissions allowance and credit portfolios. It cost $20 million.

• How NOT to cover energy news
• Is the post-cheap-oil, de-globalized future upon us?
• Could we power the world with just clean energy?
• Saudi Arabia’s domestic thirst for oil threatens world markets
• Report: Good policies trump wealth in making Africa’s cities ‘green’
• Secure energy future can’t be built by private sector alone
• IEA: Six years to change energy, carbon course … or else
• By 2035, world is on track to use 53 percent more energy
• Leaders call for three-year, global ‘Clean Revolution’
• Asia-Pacific needs more efficient transport, ministers agree