As renewable-energy power sources become more profitable, the streamlining of regulatory procedures and the deployment of grid-scale storage facilities are needed to safely increase their role in the power mix. Clean investments can also be encouraged among non-energy producers, tackling the constraints that lead firms to underinvest in the green transition or to prioritise short-term cost considerations over longer-term environmental and, ultimately, economic benefits.
This conference contributes to this debate, envisaging a rich array of research papers encompassing a wide range of topics, which aim at shedding light on significant issues that seem especially important to me: Climate and energy-related events have a sizable impact on firm activity, with potentially disruptive effects on several levels, such as labour productivity, final demand, supply chain linkages, or energy source differentiation.