Honest energy partnerships: The best way to address gridlock and greenwashing

James Hall, Chief Operating Officer, Evolve Energy

Many of today’s industrial and commercial businesses are finding themselves stuck in an energy paradox. On one side lies the ‘rock’: electrical grid connection bottlenecks and a renewable energy market that remains hard to access for anyone without specialist knowledge. On the other side lies the ‘hard place’: mounting pressure from customers, investors, regulators and peers to meet ambitious sustainable goals while remaining commercially buoyant.

All too often, the proposed way through is an oversimplified promise: switch to renewables and the problem is solved. But with authentic renewable supply solutions of limited availability that are broadly inaccessible to the mass market and standard retail renewable products merely comprising merchant environmental certificates being badged against conventional brown energy facing increasing scrutiny, proving your business is powered by renewables is now more than a paper-based activity. Energy can no longer be treated as a business overhead or compliance concern; energy is a strategic lever for resilience, reputation and long-term value creation. With so much to gain, it’s time for businesses to rethink their energy strategies. And the options are out there for progressive organisations that identify with value protection and value creation through sustainability by implementing a considered renewables strategy.

Where is the pressure to decarbonise coming from?

The pressure on businesses to decarbonise operations and meet sustainable goals isn’t just coming from one place, it’s coming from several at once. The global initiative, Electrify Now, launched during London Climate Action Week in June 2026, is just one example. Its central aim is to fast-track the shift from fossil fuels to renewable electricity, increasing global electrification to 35% in final energy use by 2035. Electrify Now’s global business statement recognises the central role businesses must play in achieving this - but also acknowledges the ‘structural reality’ they face. Continued reliance on volatile fuel markets is causing investment delays and destabilising price spikes, leading to persistent budget uncertainty and raised operating costs that undermine competitiveness .

In the same week, data centres were put under the spotlight. The soaring energy demand required by AI from data centres is adding further strain to national electricity grids already under pressure. It has prompted UN Secretary-General António Guterres to propose an AI Environmental Transparency Initiative. During London Climate Week, he called on data centres to disclose the carbon, water and land impacts of their systems and commit to powering their operations with renewable energy by 2030.

The conclusion we can draw from these Climate Week conversations, and so many more that have taken place before, during and after, is that the expectation to decarbonise is no longer a future obligation. It’s a present one - and it’s arriving faster than the infrastructure which must be built to support it. Put simply, businesses are being asked to commit to targets before the practical route to reaching them is clear. That gap between sustainability ambitions and access to green energy sources is where the ‘easy switch to renewables’ narrative sold to businesses for so long starts to break down.

A green tariff was never the whole answer

For years, the route to corporate sustainability was billed as straightforward: sign a green tariff, buy renewable energy certificates, job done. That approach no longer holds. Delays in national grid connections mean getting new projects online can take years - sometimes as long as a decade. Genuine additionality - the assurance that your procurement strategy is actually driving investment in new renewable development - is rare. And with more than 10,000 companies now setting science-based targets, annually-matched REGO certificates increasingly fail to satisfy stakeholders who expect evidence of real-world impact, instead of just a paper trail.

What does this all mean? It means the promise of an effortless switch was never realistic. And it means that businesses need to take a pragmatic approach, asking what must be done now, what requires more patience, and what requires some fresh thinking - all without ever stalling on progress. Ultimately, honest energy partnerships are increasingly recognised as crucial to cutting through complexity, helping multi-priority businesses move energy from being a managed risk to a source of strategic value.

Treating energy as a strategic asset

Reframed as a strategic asset, renewable energy becomes a capability to be built, rather than a target to meet. The most resilient approach to renewable energy procurement layers different generation technologies, locations and asset size against a business’ consumption profile, reducing waste, risk and mitigating cost exposure through the time matching of demand to generation. Businesses can achieve that more easily if they find a partner that treats their relationship as long-term and strategic, instead of one-off or transactional. An expert partner should be able to adapt the pathway to energy decarbonisation as credit conditions change, new generation assets become available and regulatory expectations shift.

This is the approach Evolve Energy takes with capable third-party intermediary (TPI) partners who support progressive organisations that may lack the covenant strength or requisite volume to deliver against internal or external ESG mandates.  . A corporate power purchase agreement (PPA), structured around named generation assets, ties supply to specific projects. This, in turn, is supported by creative credit solutions with generation secured, matched and allocated to customers through flexible supply frameworks. Our approach is designed to scale to meet a business wherever it is on its sustainability pathway; supporting and adapting the narrative between financial resilience and EBITDA protection aligned to a robust renewables solution on the one hand through to shareholder value creation by championing the uniqueness and authenticity through purposeful storytelling.

Taking this approach means annual REGOs can be replaced with half-hourly-matched supply, stakeholders and investors gain a clear line of sight to where renewable energy actually comes from, and reliance on an overcrowded electrical grid is no longer a threat to operational resilience. Grid bottlenecks and greenwashing risk will never fully disappear, but they will stop being disguised - replaced by transparent progress at a sustainable pace, and an honest, dependable energy partnership.