I will explain a gradient formula for beta functions of two-dimensional quantum field theories. The gradient formula has the form derivative c = - (gij+Delta gij+bij) bj where bj are the beta functions, c and gij are the Zamolodchikov c-function and metric, bij is an antisymmetric tensor introduced by H. Osborn and Delta gij is a certain metric correction. The formula is derived under the assumption of stress-energy conservation and certain conditions on the infrared behaviour the most significant of which is the condition that the large distance limit of the field theory does not exhibit spontaneously broken global conformal symmetry. Being specialized to non-linear sigma models this formula implies a one-to-one correspondence between renormalization group fixed points and critical points of c.