LONDON: Investors should focus less on predicting geopolitical crises and more on building resilient, adaptable business models, experts said during a panel at the BMG Economic Forum at the London Stock Exchange.
The session brought together energy economist Dr. Carole Nakhle, CEO of Crystol Energy; Sohail Ali, partner at DLA Piper; and Zahra Sadiq, founder of Impact Group, to examine how global uncertainty is reshaping investment strategies.
Speaking to Arab News after the panel, Nakhle said the global conversation around energy transition has become more grounded after years of overly ambitious expectations.
“When we all started talking about energy transition, there was a lot of ambition — and it’s good to be ambitious,” she said. “But we also have to be realistic.”
She said early expectations that fossil fuels could quickly be replaced by renewable energy underestimated the scale and complexity of global energy systems.
“The transition does not happen overnight. It won’t happen even in a few decades. It will take much longer and it will cost a lot of money,” she said.
Instead of replacing fossil fuels outright, countries should pursue a diversified energy mix, she said.
“Today the more pragmatic approach is not substitution but complementarity. All energy sources have a role to play in providing a more balanced and resilient energy system.”
Nakhle also stressed that recent geopolitical tensions have exposed the importance of resilient energy infrastructure.
“It’s not just about whether we can produce energy, but whether we can get that energy safely and readily to the market,” she said. “Infrastructure resilience has become just as important as production.”
She pointed to Saudi Arabia as an example of balancing its hydrocarbon resources with investments in cleaner technologies.
“Saudi Arabia is using revenues generated from hydrocarbons to invest in solar, hydrogen, carbon capture and storage,” she said. “It is recycling hydrocarbon revenues to create a more balanced domestic energy mix while also supporting the global energy transition.”
DLA Piper’s Ali said businesses should move beyond treating geopolitics as a compliance issue and instead build it into long-term strategy, with greater attention to resilient supply chains, governance and emerging risks including cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.
Impact Group’s Sadiq said investors are increasingly looking beyond financial returns, placing greater emphasis on measurable social and economic impact as Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 projects move from planning to delivery.
The panel concluded that in an increasingly uncertain world, resilience and adaptability — not prediction — will be the qualities that define successful investment strategies.
