Russia’s invasion of Ukraine changed the European energy equation—now efficiency is just as important as sustainability

For a long stretch, Europe could treat the energy transition as a straightforward climate project. Clean up the mix, keep the lights on, move on. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine blew that up. As Anant Maheshwari of Honeywell puts it, the old assumption was that gas was cheap and secure; now supply can’t be taken for granted, and when it is available, it comes at a high cost.

That changes the job. Europe can’t separate decarbonization from affordability or security anymore, because the energy system has to do all three at once without making European industry less competitive. Maheshwari points to China as the clearest example of that mindset: invest across solar, wind, biofuels, sustainable aviation fuel and carbon capture, while also pushing energy efficiency. His point is less about one technology than about speed and range. China, he says, moves with the widest mix of applications, at pace and scale.

Brazil offers a different lesson. Maheshwari sees it as a leader in biofuels, helped by agricultural resources and crops such as sugarcane and macaúba, a native palm used for fuel. That matters most in sectors that are hard to electrify, aviation among them. The idea is simple enough: grow something, turn it into jet fuel, and keep a part of the economy moving without relying on conventional fossil supply.

Europe still has serious strengths. It has strong companies, deep engineering talent, good research capacity, a wealthy market, and an industrial base that could help deploy new technologies quickly. It also already has a lot of low-carbon power: 48% of EU energy production in 2024 came from renewables and 28% from nuclear, according to official EU data. But Maheshwari’s warning is blunt: regulation has to help industry accelerate, not slow it down. And he argues that the cheapest energy is often the energy already being wasted.

That’s where efficiency stops sounding boring and starts looking strategic. A restaurant chain with 600 U.K. stores, he says, only found major differences in energy use after tying them into one central system, with some locations using 30% to 40% more than others. That kind of waste is exactly why Europe keeps running into the same wall: it keeps talking about generating more, when the bigger prize may be using what it already has with less stupidity.