Energy transition in emerging markets: the questions boards should be asking

For companies in resource-rich economies, the energy transition is not an abstract climate debate. It is a question about future revenues, the cost of capital and the licence to operate.

Five questions for the boardroom

• Which of our revenues depend on assumptions about fossil-fuel demand that may not hold?
• Where can we use existing infrastructure and skills in new energy value chains?
• What will our lenders and insurers require of us in five years?
• Do we have reliable power ourselves, or is energy security our first transition problem?
• Who in management is accountable for the plan, and how is it measured?

Security before transition

In many fast-growing markets, the most urgent energy question is access. Plans that ignore reliability in favour of headline targets tend to lose the support of the businesses they depend on.

“A credible transition plan reads less like a pledge and more like a capital allocation schedule.”

The boards that get this right treat transition as a portfolio of decisions — some to protect existing value, some to build new value — rather than a single announcement.