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This article deals with the challenge of approaching decision-making processes through strategic environmental assessment (SEA). It is argued that the interaction between policy-making and planning in strategic decision-making processes is a neglected reason for problems with applying SEA, as legislation and guidance on SEA primarily approach either the policy or plan level. To substantiate the argument, the extent of interaction is empirically investigated. Four contemporary decision-making processes in the Danish energy sector are mapped as a series of choices. Fundamental changes with considerable environmental impacts are decided these years, often without preceding SEA processes. The mapping shows a profound interaction between policy-making and planning. In this interaction, public consultation, systematic environmental analyses, and transparency on alternatives are primarily related to choices of planning character. The findings lead to a discussion of the existing SEA guidance that is challenged in terms of adequacy of the guidance to approach the interaction.

The Public Electricity and Heat Production (PEHP) is the most emissive sector in European economy. The characteristic features of PEHP contribute to the importance of its mitigation role. In this study, the decarbonization potential of energy sector was retrospectively analyzed. Proposed algorithm contained, at the first layer, the year-by-year data analysis and calculation while at the second graphical interpretation and pattern grouping. Despite the double-layering, the developed approach included the three following stepwise stages: the CO₂ emission alternatives scenarios pathways methodology, the CO₂ emission driving forces modes and influence weight methodology, and the transformation pattern identifying and grouping. Based on 1990–2017 CO₂ emission inventories, the investigation of long-term PEHP decarbonization in 26 European countries was performed, in year-by-year and country-by-country processing. All results and findings have become the foundation for describing achieved decarbonization goals and 27 years mitigation ways. The Energy Consumption (EC) and Emission Factor (EF) have been pointed as a key driving forces of CO₂ emission and as a key development indicator of PEHP sectoral transformation structure. Based on the developed country-by-country graphical interpretation interface, the five key patterns of PEHP decarbonization processes in European countries were observed and defined. The algorithm which has been applied and tested in 26 countries for 27 years was proved to be a universal and flexible tool to determine the lack of a utilitarian path of PEHP CO₂ emission mitigation in Europe.

In recent years, we have been living through two epochal transformations in business: the new approach to sustainability and digital transformation. In this chapter, we analyse how these two phenomena intersect. To tackle this research question, we first discuss the opportunities and the limits of the energy efficiency sector, specifically referring to the role of green investments and the challenges of Energy Service Companies (ESCos). Thereafter, we introduce the leading technologies of the digital–financial revolution and illustrate the main features that characterise fintech, especially highlighting the role of blockchain and tokenisation in the energy efficiency sector. Through the analysis of the EFFORCE case, we highlight how in practice fintech and blockchain are supporting the crossing of certain limits of the energy efficiency sector and sustaining green investment.

Corruption has traditionally been wildly rampant in the energy sector and its effects have proved to be extremely dramatic. For decades energy companies have perpetrated corrupt practices with impunity to obtain from the local governments the green light to construct intrusive energy infrastructures, which have the potential of causing serious damages to a country’s environment and social fabric. This illicit way of carrying out business activities has been de facto tolerated by governments for a long time. It affected particular developing nations, causing the so-called “resource curse”. Then, almost unpredictably, over the course of last two decades, significant and increasingly determined efforts have been devoted to fighting against such a criminal phenomenon. It is well established that the role that transparency plays within such a grim scenario is fundamental. This chapter will examine the intimate relationship between the lack of corporate transparency and corruption, and analyze the most important legal instruments that have been developed to encourage a transparent way of conducting business activities in the energy sector at the international, regional and domestic level. Then, will also focus on the recent Trump’s administration decision to nullify the US transparency rules for the extractive industries analyzing the scope of its potentially dramatic consequences.