Sustainable Energy

Energy powers everything — healthcare, education, food production, economic growth. The world's dependence on fossil fuels for that power is one of the primary drivers of climate change, responsible for nearly three quarters of all greenhouse gas emissions. But the transition to cleaner energy is not only an environmental imperative. It is also one of the largest economic opportunities of the century, already attracting hundreds of billions in annual investment and creating millions of jobs.

The energy transition is not one challenge — it is several, happening simultaneously and at different speeds across different parts of the world. Renewable energy is growing fast, but the infrastructure built to carry it — grids, storage systems, distribution networks — was designed for centralized fossil fuel generation, not for the variable, distributed nature of solar and wind. Energy that cannot be stored or transported efficiently is energy that cannot be relied upon. In parallel, energy demand is rising, not falling: AI and data centers are among the fastest-growing consumers of electricity globally, creating new pressure even as the energy sector tries to decarbonize. Industrial sectors — steel, cement, shipping, aviation — are among the hardest to electrify, and currently account for a significant share of emissions with few viable clean alternatives at scale. And while wealthy nations debate the pace of transition, 730 million people have no reliable electricity at all — a gap that is not closing fast enough and that renewable technology alone cannot fix without parallel investment in grid infrastructure, financing, and local capacity.

Each dimension of the energy challenge involves different actors, trade-offs, and opportunities. Pick the one your team wants to dig into, then take it to your worksheet.