Accenture: Sustainable Energy Business Opportunities Identified

By Rob Starr, Content Manager, Big4.com

A series of new reports, Sustainable Energy for All: The Business Opportunity outlines business action across 19 industry sectors. They highlight how businesses can create value by supporting the UN Secretary-General’s Sustainable Energy for All initiative, which aims to expand energy access worldwide, improve energy efficiency and increase the share of renewables.

Fifty percent of the recommended actions within the reports focus on energy efficiency, 38 percent on renewable energy use and 12 percent on access to energy. The five most common priority actions identified across all sectors were driving energy efficiency in operations as well as through energy efficient products and services; the use of renewable energy in operations; reusing waste streams; and engaging in stakeholder engagement and advocacy.

The UN Global Compact and Accenture have complied the information and they also identify two major challenges:  the lack of global policy and regulatory solutions, and the subsequent need for sectors to introduce industry-wide standards that provide governments with a framework to support. Meanwhile, the high level of risk associated with the recommended actions is also identified, and incorporates suggestions that the creation of new financing mechanisms and instruments will be required by both the public and private sectors.