In broad terms, what is your PhD about?
In my PhD, I take an organizational perspective on the sustainability transition. I focus on oil and gas companies, because these companies have a really large impact on the direction of the transition, and really have a lot of influence on what this ‘energy transition’ is going to be. Because of this influence, I think it's particularly important to look within these organizations, and ask, what are the organizations doing? Do they have internal barriers towards things like green innovation?
Interesting, so what are some of your key findings?
I find that there is both a kind of symbolic as well as a more substantial response from these companies.
The engagement in renewable energy has really increased over time. But what is interesting – and I will use a Norwegian company as an example here – is that for many, many years, this company really had to struggle to legitimize these technologies internally.
Traditionally, the corporate purpose has been to maximize shareholder value, maximize profits. Oil and gas is a very profitable industry, while the returns from renewable energy are much lower, so employees and existing stakeholders were really, really doubtful about the company going into renewables. That did not make any sense to them.
So, there were these leadership initiatives stating over and over again that sustainability is something important. That even though it’s not as profitable as oil and gas, it's still relevant. This was combined with a lot of organizational restructuring to bring teams from renewable and oil and gas closer together. These kind of leadership initiatives, and the cultural aspects signalling to the employees to have a broader purpose were really important for actually managing to increase the engagement in renewable energy.
You see real efforts to contribute to the transition?
Yes, but at the same time, several of these companies have a shared strategy in how to protect against the diminishing legitimacy of oil and gas. The companies focus on how they are ‘energy companies’. They have net-zero plans and thousands of sustainability strategies and goals. But these are goals they don’t necessarily achieve and that are subject to change. In other words, their commitment to the divestment from oil and gas is very vague.
So, there are a lot of initiatives that maybe lower the emissions a little bit. But at the end of the day, it's a preservation of oil and gas and fossil fuels.
So, while on the one side – things are happening on the inside of these companies, they are still resisting – and rhetorically reframing – a lot of the necessary changes?
There are these ‘shades of green’ if you will.
You have real initiatives on green technology. But ironically the way the companies frame that work is not primarily connected to sustainability. Instead, these initiatives are discussed more in the way of “how can we make this practical and profitable, so we can legitimize them within our industry”.
At the same time, the continued production of oil and gas is reshaped and recategorized into nice narratives and is actively connected to sustainability. But it is connected to sustainability in very vague terms, as a way to maintain the public legitimacy of oil and gas for many more years.
So, taking these two together, I wonder at the end of my thesis, whether these companies are really talking about an energy transition, or is it rather an energy addition? With the persistence of oil and gas and just additional markets of renewable energy on top.
Reflecting a bit on this – what would you say are some of the implications?
The way a company thinks is very short term oriented. But in order to achieve a transition, the whole mindset, the whole planning approach has to shift from short term orientation towards long term, future oriented thinking. This is a huge challenge for these companies. So, I think that's a very relevant and necessary research avenue for future research to explore. How can we implement this shift in thinking from short term to long term orientation in companies in order to facilitate and accelerate such large transitions?
I think it's important to really educate business and management students on how to conduct a sustainable business. Teaching them things that go beyond traditional, pure profit seeking shareholder value.