The Iberian Industry and Energy Transition Initiative

In the same way geographies with historical access to cheap fossil fuels have an economic advantage today, access to affordable and secure renewable energy represents a significant advantage into the future, with a differentiating factor: this time, the industry needs to be much closer to its energy source. As governments, companies, and individuals are committing to net-zero emissions by 2050, the energy transition is at the forefront of this movement, driving unprecedent change for the world’s economies.

For Spain and Portugal on the Iberian Peninsula, the energy transition is particularly important for ensuring sustainability and competitiveness into the future. The region is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change and has experienced greater deindustrialization of its economies vis-à-vis Europe in general.

Along with the urgent need to decarbonize to mitigate the effects of climate change, the energy transition could represent a significant opportunity for the region. Spain’s and Portugal’s unique geographical advantages, including ample opportunities for cost-effective renewable-energy production and abundant raw materials, and their mature industrial base suggest that the region is well placed to capture the green growth that the energy transition could bring.

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Accelerating the energy transition would require concerted action across sectors as well as significant mobilization of capital, but if Spain and Portugal can achieve this through targeted unlocks, they could play a leading role in the energy transition and help enable Europe’s net-zero goals while fostering green industrial growth. In our related initiative articles, we explore Spain’s and Portugal’s natural advantages and the challenges they need to overcome to seize this moment.

We want to shape our stakeholders’ conversations, focusing on current challenges from day one. That is why we launched the Missions, dedicated and collaborative consortiums of industry players brought together to address key sector challenges, shape industries’ outlooks, and drive change by working toward a common objective of developing Spain’s and Portugal’s industries, improving their global competitiveness, and accelerating the region’s energy transition. The opportunity lies within the existing industries (through a gain in competitive edge) and with the formation of new ones (new energy vectors and value chains).

Our Missions’ goal is to identify challenges and unlocks and take action to accelerate the energy transition. This includes the following:

• Increasing transparency into the starting point, and providing fact-based perspectives on how to accelerate the energy transition and capture the associated value
• Accelerating capital investment to feed growth and development, potentially pursuing pilot projects and joint investments
• Building prominent knowledge through direct collaborations with partners, refining existing models and perspectives with a focus on Spain and Portugal
• Solving for perceived barriers to decarbonization, gathering support from decision makers, and spurring positive pressure to act now
• Increasing collaboration across relevant stakeholders