The global supply chain landscape is changing – shaped by trade tensions, tariff battles, geopolitical risk, and resource constraints. At last week’s ERC event Towards Innovative and Sustainable Supply Chains hosted by Siemens Energy and Deloitte professionals from the energy sector and industry discussed the impact of global developments on the energy transition in The Netherlands and Europe and the choices companies make to keep momentum.

Below is a summary of the plenary programme. Notes from the Focus Group sessions will follow.
All presentations as well as the wrap-up video are available on the ERC website.
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Despite the challenges that abound the mood was hopeful. As Renske Ytsma, Managing Director, Siemens Energy Benelux said during the event opening together with Oscar Snijders, Partner, Sustainability Lead, Deloitte: “It’s up to us to keep the course of what we can influence. We may not be able to change the world, but as a community, we can change what happens in our domains.”

Reframing Energy Transition
Setting the stage, Gerben Hieminga, an economist at ING Bank specialising in energy transition and hard-to-abate industries, spoke about the gap between climate ambition and economic reality. Policy can only solve part of the puzzle. Drawing an analogy with the game Monopoly, Gerben said: No matter how you play the game, the outcome is always the same. In energy transition – if we want a different outcome, we need different rules of the game. Different players will not make a change.”
He outlined four enablers for real change:

1. Presence of alternatives
2. Sound business case
3. Ability to scale
4. Institutionalisation, meaning making the alternative the new normal

You can find Gerben’s full presentation with details about the four enablers in the FORUM section.

Gerben’s framing laid the foundation for the four deep-dive sessions, each exploring different levers of innovation and sustainability in today’s turbulent supply chain environment.

Sustainable Procurement & Delivery – Aligning Business & Policy
In a double interview, Christina Iosifidou, Head of Sustainability, Siemens Energy – Grid Technologies and Jille Luijckx, Sustainability Partner and CSDDD (Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive) Lead, Deloitte discussed how corporate strategies and European regulations are working in tandem to embed sustainability into procurement. Increasingly, suppliers are not just reacting to client demands—but forming strategic partnerships to co-develop solutions.

Topics discussed included:

• Co-innovation between suppliers and clients
• Circular economy implementation
• The regulatory push from the European Union

Christina shared how European regulations can be both a burden and an opportunity and a burden. The CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) is challenging – especially for smaller suppliers to provide data transparency. But Siemens Energy likes to look at the opportunities and is very active in for example “designing for scrap” – designing products for easy dismantling at the end of a long lifetime.

Jille has seen many clients shift their strategies and transform their supply chains. The most important regulation with an impact on supply chains is CBAM (Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism). Designed to prevent carbon leakage, this regulation will have an impact on steelmaking outside of the EU as steelmakers need to demonstrate the carbon footprint of their product.

Deglobalisation as a Competitive Edge?
Taking developments in the offshore wind industry as a starting point, the next session addressed the question: Can deglobalisation be an opportunity for Europe?

A panel consisting of Phil Cole, Director of Industrial Affairs, WindEurope, Ruben Dijkstra, Managing Director BeNeLux region, Ørsted, Sjouke Bootsma, Director Supply Chain Management, TenneT and Rob Bogers, Director, Shell Energy, The Netherlands discussed how:

• Permitting must not be a delaying factor for new wind farm developments argued Phil Cole.
• Designing and manufacturing should take place in Europe where possible.
• If products cannot be made in Europe, then at least competition should be fair.
• CfDs have successfully stimulated supply. Now it’s time to stimulate demand for green electricity and related to that for green hydrogen said Ruben Dijkstra.
• The government has an important role in supporting demand creation, especially from industrial offtakers said Rob Bogers. Green product norms and certificates can stimulate demand and making the business case.
• EU member states should not compete – ideally, there is a pan-EU approach to wind supply chain investments across countries.
• A tender for a portfolio of projects rather than individual ones can provide potential suppliers with long-term perspective. TenneT gave an example of a tender for offshore substations and how the tender encouraged them to invest in their workforce and the decarbonisation of their processes.

Phil Cole, Director of Industrial Affairs, WindEurope, introduced the session and addressed the state of the European wind industry, the need for simpler permitting and for a level playing field for Europe’s clean tech industry.

You can find Phil’s slides in the FORUM section.

Investing in the Energy Transition – Still Worth the Risk?
With economic uncertainty growing, the third session examined whether energy transition projects are still financially attractive. The consensus: Yes—but the playing field has changed. We heard from Peter-Paul Ekelschot, Managing Director Energy, ING Netherlands and Global Lead for Low Carbon Solutions, Maarten Weeber, Business Development Manager, Air Liquide, Lotte Voermans, Vice President Supply Chain management, VARO Energy and Hendrik de Wit, Project Director CCS & Hydrogen, Yara.

Key themes discussed:

• Many energy transition projects include project-on-project risks. An example: a SAF production plant in The Netherlands that will use imported methanol and all local methanol production projects need to take FID individually.
• New technologies take time to develop. Twenty years ago the LNG market really took off, ten years ago the offshore wind industry started scaling.
• The challenge with new energy projects now is that the timeframe that we want new technologies to develop is shorter. Banks can leverage their experience from adjacent industries.
• A mandate helps but a regulation is better. A mandate is too flexible and can more easily be changed. Stable regulations are key to taking FID.
• Decarbonising the supply chain for consumer products can be major investment for the producer, while resulting in only a marginal price increase for the end consumer. If Yara’s green fertiliser is used to grow potatoes, a portion of fries will be half a cent more expensive.
•  This links back to the previous sessions and the need to generate demand for more sustainable products and ensure the added costs are distributed.

Peter-Paul Ekelschot, Managing Director Energy, ING Netherlands, introduced the session, addressing the bankability of new energy projects, how risk allocation impacts bankability and key steps for projects on a path to FID.

You can find Peter-Paul’s slides in the FORUM section.

Future Energy Leaders & Start-Up Innovation
The event closed with three inspirational pitches showcasing how original ideas can turn into impactful innovations. Future Energy Leader and student Circular Engineering Judie El Ghazzawi introduced the session.

Cato Kannekes, Energy & Utilities Technologist, Shell Energy & Chemical Park Rotterdam presented the innovative use case where Shell jointly with startup drones and sensors companies developed a more accurate air emissions monitoring replacing the use of conversion factors and enhancing safety and sustainability.
Her story illustrated how corporates are working on new cooperations models, support and drive innovation and enable startups to scale.

Zac Cesaro, Founder, Hymonic shared the story of Hymonic – a venture incubated in Siemens Energy Ventures – that has developed a solution for local ammonia cracking. Hymonic offers a scalable and efficient way to build a green hydrogen supply chain using existing infrastructure.

Benjamin Lehner, CEO, DMEC (Dutch Marine Energy Centre) spoke about one of DMEC’s projects: offshore energy storage and Power-to-X. By integrating storage solutions offshore the project reduces power grid strain and copper use, contributing to reduce overall cost and a more sustainable and resilient energy supply chain.

The plenary programme ended with an invitation from Future Energy Leader Agney Bhakare to join the Future Energy Leaders’ next Innovation Hub. The Innovation Hub brings together teams of young professionals and students to work on a problem statements from companies that join as partner. You can sign up as partner of participant here. [link naar https://qrcodes.pro/T9TaMd]

You can find Zac and Benjamin’s slides and Agney’s announcement about the Innovation Hub in the FORUM section.

Thank you
The ERC Steering Committee thanks Sofie van den Enk for moderating the discussions and all involved in making the event a success. A special thanks to Future Energy Leaders Judie El Ghazzawi, Bachelor student Circular Engineering, Ivo Wakounig, PhD at Eindhoven University of Technology for their work as video reporters. The Future Energy Leaders are a community of young energy professionals under the World Energy Council flag and a collaboration partner of ERC