The Day Before the Day After
By the time the politics of energy changes, your strategy should be executed.
As part of our Real Decarbonization Consortium with Stanford University’s Center for Fuels of the Future, I recently sat down with oil and gas company leaders responsible for decarbonization, new energy ventures, and sustainability strategies.
These are serious people doing serious work inside serious companies. They are navigating tariffs, power demand growth, geopolitical strife, capital discipline, and a public conversation that changes tone every six months. They have plenty on their plates just managing the day-to-day!
Yet the most pressing question we discussed—which your organization is also likely navigating right now—was this: What should my company be doing today for the day ahead, when the political pendulum swings back?
That question is more urgent than it first appears. With the public conversation focused on energy affordability, it may seem that the topics that dominated the ESG and climate era do not carry the same institutional force they did even two years ago. Yet the day after politics changes will be too late. Smart company leaders are executing the necessary strategies well in advance.
Both of these things are true:
You have more agency than you think in shaping what the next political environment looks like.
No matter what form the next political leftward turn takes, you should already be doing the work you will later be judged for.
Either way, you will be held to account for what you do now.
The situation
The next political era is not predetermined. Company leaders can help shape whether it is defined by pragmatic dealmaking or performative backlash.
In the eyes of many communities, environmental advocates, academics, policymakers, and center-left institutions, oil and gas is part of today’s winning political coalition. Whether or not you agree, that is the perception that matters. And because we in the industry are perceived as holding more power today, we bear the burden of initiating relationship-building.
That means the outreach is on us. On you. Right now.
The new paradigm could be moderate, centrist, and institutionally pragmatic. It could be spearheaded by a coalition of people who (heaven willing!) emphasize partnership, value business, and still believe in stepwise progress. If so, great! You know how to work with people who are pragmatic and future focused.
But it could also be progressive-populist: more adversarial, self-righteous, and impatient with incrementalism. The result could be a politics that vilifies companies as powerful enemies that must be constrained.
In a four- to six-year horizon I would plan for that outcome: A more angry politics. A more prosecutorial politics.
Whether the next turn is moderate or populist, one thing is predictable: Companies will be judged on what they did when they still had room to move voluntarily.
That is why there are two things for you to do now.
First: Shape the middle
If you do not want American politics to swing from populist right to populist left with very little business or regulatory certainty in between, then you should help shape the moderate middle. It has to be built, funded, engaged, and given something serious to stand on.
You have agency.
You have a say in the next political environment—whether it is to be populated by people and institutions capable of pragmatic dealmaking, durable compromise, and understanding how energy systems actually change, or whether the field will be ceded to actors whose incentives reward moralizing, escalation, and symbolic fights.
This is the unglamorous work of civic investment: Build rapport now with moderate stakeholders on the center left and center right. Fund serious institutions, coalitions, and policy shops, not just trade associations and partisan armies.
Refusing to shape the middle does not make you neutral. It just makes the middle weak and irrelevant.
And if moderate actors are weak, fragmented, unsupported, or (as could happen) absent, the vacuum will be filled by more oppositional political actors. That is how you end up in a world with less certainty, less trust, and fewer serious counterparts on the other side of the table.
Second: Do the work now that the next left will demand later
No matter who governs next, some expectations are highly predictable.
The smartest companies are using this moment to “stay fit.” (H/t to Zach Keith!) Keep your emissions reporting and sustainability reporting disciplined. Do not dismantle capabilities you will need to rebuild later. Keep talking about climate, emissions reductions, sustainability, and community.
Demonstrate that your commitments from the ESG and climate era were not performative.
It was just two years ago, not 20! Stakeholders are watching to see whether your company meant what it said when those commitments were fashionable.
And you do not need universal approval to make real progress. Incremental improvement matters. Operational discipline matters. A credible series of small moves matters.
The scorecard is being filled out now.
The day after is not the time to invent your strategy. It is the day when everyone else decides whether the strategy you already built was good enough.
Making the most of The Moment
Let me help you shape what happens next:
Forward this piece to your government affairs colleagues and let’s initiate collaborations with new stakeholders.
Reply with your toughest objection and help me stress-test these ideas.
Review The Myth and The Moment to help me get the word out.
Hit that heart button to show your enthusiasm for a big fat moderate political center.
To today,
Tisha