How to develop a customized corporate energy strategy

Abstract

PurposeCorporations need a structure for thinking through the development of a new energy/environment strategy and the business implications of different strategy alternatives. This paper aims to investigate how to develop a customized corporate energy strategy.Design/methodology/approachThis four‐step process focuses on the major energy/environment issues requiring corporate decisions; it generates two alternate scenarios of the future that span the possibilities and identifies basic policy choices for corporations and also the tradeoffs to be made.FindingsThe paper finds that this process to develop a new energy strategy addresses the prospects that the way an organization manages its energy and environmental threats and opportunities over the next 15 years could invigorate or cripple it. The four major drivers of uncertainty for the future: the dynamics of energy supply and demand, global warming effects, society's environmental‐mitigation and remediation priorities, and world economic development outcomes.Research limitations/implicationsBill Ralston is the co‐author of the best‐practice guide The Scenario Planning Handbook (with Ian Wilson).Practical implicationsThe four‐step process outlined here provides corporate executives the practical means to interpret the global forces buffeting them, to identify new pathways for creating value in the future and to get started.Originality/valueThis process to develop a new energy strategy evaluates the prospects that the way an organization manages its energy and environmental threats and opportunities over the next 15 years could invigorate or cripple it.