Maintaining Green Goals in Disruptive Times: Evidences from the European Energy Sector

The COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be a challenge for the global energy sector. As lockdowns and movement restrictions around the world have slowed travel, commerce, and industrial activities during the first stages of the health crisis, the global energy demand has plummeted with the prices of commodities such as crude oil and natural gas reaching all-time lows. This chapter focuses on the European energy market and the way in which companies are managing the challenges in an attempt to supply with the necessary energy while adhering to environmental targets in accordance to their corporate social responsibility commitments. As a looming energy crisis threatens to sweep across Europe in the winter of 2021/2022 just as countries have pledged to reduce emissions and phase out fossil fuels at the COP 26 UN climate summit in Glasgow, the energy sector faces the prospect of having to use more fossil fuels than ever before in order to avert possible energy shortages on the continent. The possibility of blackouts across Europe has taken the forefront, and the effects of climate change and the need to mitigate its causes seem to have been, for the moment at least, cast aside.