Energy Transition: A Boardroom Perspective

The global energy transition will only succeed with the active participation of the private sector. Corporates are central to this effort: they are major sources of greenhouse gas emissions, among the largest consumers of electricity, critical drivers of innovation and scale in climate technologies, and - crucially - key providers of capital. Today, a substantial share of global energy investment is financed by private capital, and as fiscal constraints for governments intensify, the role of corporates is set to become even more decisive. Yet corporate action on climate is neither automatic nor uniform. Publicly listed companies operate within a governance framework shaped by shareholder expectations, board oversight, executive incentives, regulation, and societal pressure. Boards are ultimately responsible for setting strategy and allocating capital, and their decisions reflect how value is defined and measured across different industries and business models. As a result, well-intentioned climate goals often encounter a hard constraint at the capital allocation stage - where projects must compete for funding against alternative uses of capital on risk, return, and strategic relevance.

This seminar aims to demystify how corporate boards think about the energy transition. Drawing on real-world boardroom experience, we will explore the key drivers that shape decision-making - investor priorities, return thresholds, compensation structures, regulatory signals, and competitive dynamics - and how these have evolved over time. Through selected case studies from public companies, the session will illustrate how these forces have influenced capital allocation and strategic choices related to decarbonization, climate technologies, and long-term transition pathways. Finally, we will synthesize these insights to identify the conditions required to catalyze widespread and durable corporate action in support of the energy transition.

This perspective matters now because the next phase of the energy transition will be determined less by ambition-setting and more by execution at scale. With public finances under pressure, investor scrutiny rising, and policy incentives evolving unevenly across regions, understanding how boards actually make capital allocation decisions is essential to closing the gap between climate goals and real-world outcomes.

Speaker: Rahul Dhir, Stanford University

Attend in person or online (See weblink)