Sustainability is entering a period of reassessment in which companies are looking more closely at the relationship between environmental commitments, operational performance, and core business priorities. The past two decades establish sustainability as an important corporate function, expand the quality of environmental data, and create widely used systems for setting targets and reporting progress. That development produces substantial value, but it also reveals the risk that measurement can become disconnected from the operating decisions that ultimately determine whether emissions decline.

At New York Energy Innovation 2026, D. Evan van Hook, Chief Sustainability Officer of Viridi, presents this moment as an opportunity to reset the way sustainability is understood inside the enterprise. Drawing on more than two decades of senior sustainability leadership, including his appointment to lead sustainability at Honeywell in 2004, van Hook argues that the next stage of the field is defined less by the expansion of reporting systems and more by the integration of sustainability with energy management, resilience, cost control, infrastructure planning, and business performance.

During his time leading sustainability at Honeywell, van Hook says the company reduces its emissions by approximately 96 percent and improves energy efficiency by more than 70 percent. That experience informs a perspective shaped by the early formation of the corporate sustainability function and its evolution into a more established professional discipline. He credits the sustainability enterprise with delivering substantial progress, while also questioning whether an excessive emphasis on protocols and reporting standards can sometimes draw resources away from implementation.

His central argument is not that measurement loses its importance. Accurate information remains essential for understanding performance and directing investment. The distinction lies in whether data supports action or becomes an end in itself. In van Hook’s view, the most effective sustainability work connects environmental objectives with the operating decisions that improve energy productivity, strengthen resilience, support the grid, and reduce cost.

Sustainability Enters A Period Of Reset

Corporate sustainability develops rapidly over the two decades following van Hook’s appointment at Honeywell. Companies establish dedicated leadership functions, create emissions inventories, publish targets, expand supplier reporting, and respond to growing expectations from customers, investors, regulators, and employees. These systems make environmental performance more visible and place climate considerations within formal business governance.

Van Hook views that progress as meaningful, but he also sees a need to reconsider where sustainability organizations direct their time and resources. Reporting systems can become increasingly complex and resource-intensive, particularly when organizations pursue greater analytical precision without a corresponding improvement in environmental outcomes. The challenge becomes more pronounced for small and medium-sized enterprises that have limited personnel and capital available for both measurement and implementation.

He illustrates the point through an exchange with President Barack Obama in 2015, when chief sustainability officers from several large companies meet at the White House before the Paris climate negotiations. During the discussion, Obama asks whether sustainability reporting and measurement systems are becoming too complicated and demanding, especially for smaller companies. Van Hook responds that an organization could spend months analyzing every environmental dimension of a lamp, from its supply chain to its electricity source and operating hours, and still do nothing to reduce the energy the lamp consumes.

Obama’s response, as van Hook recounts it, is direct. Rather than completing the extended analysis, could someone simply walk over and turn the lamp off? The story becomes a metaphor for the wider reset van Hook describes. Detailed analysis has value when it improves decisions, but the ultimate objective remains operational change. The quality of a sustainability program is therefore reflected not only in the sophistication of its reporting, but in whether it identifies practical actions, directs capital toward effective solutions, and produces measurable reductions in energy use and emissions.

This perspective moves sustainability closer to the operating center of the enterprise. Environmental data remains part of the work, but it functions as an instrument for understanding where action can have the greatest effect. The emphasis shifts from reporting activity to business performance, technological deployment, and environmental results.

From Reporting Complexity To Operating Results

The distinction between measurement and action does not imply that reporting standards are unnecessary. Companies need credible data to establish baselines, evaluate performance, compare investments, and communicate progress. The concern arises when the collection and refinement of data consume resources without materially changing the decisions that follow.

Van Hook presents efficiency in measurement as part of efficiency in management. Organizations benefit from information that is sufficiently accurate to support action, while avoiding analytical processes whose complexity exceeds their practical value. The objective is to understand what the business needs to know, gather that information responsibly, and use it to improve performance.

This approach places results at the center of sustainability innovation. New reporting frameworks may support transparency, but technological and operational innovation creates the reductions that reporting eventually records. Better energy controls, distributed resources, storage systems, renewable integration, demand management, and improved infrastructure can alter the company’s environmental and financial performance directly.

The same principle applies to the relationship between sustainability and other business functions. Environmental objectives become more durable when they are connected to capital planning, operations, risk management, business continuity, energy procurement, and cost management. Rather than operating as a parallel discipline, sustainability becomes part of the way the company evaluates assets, manages infrastructure, and prepares for future conditions.

Decarbonization Within A Broader Business Agenda

The energy sector is central to the decarbonization agenda because it accounts for a substantial share of greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, it is responding to rising electricity demand, grid constraints, the growth of data centers, expanded electrification, renewable integration, resilience requirements, and greater interest in distributed energy resources.

Van Hook argues that these developments should not be viewed as separate pressures. They create a set of connected business and infrastructure objectives whose solutions can also reduce emissions. Better energy management can support the grid, strengthen resilience, reduce operating costs, improve time to power, and increase the productive use of renewable generation.

This alignment changes the strategic position of decarbonization. Rather than appearing as an environmental objective that competes with other priorities, it becomes one of the outcomes produced by stronger energy management. A company that improves the way it generates, stores, purchases, and uses electricity can advance several objectives through the same underlying investment.

Van Hook presents this broader alignment as an important development for the corporate sustainability function. A sustainability leader who understands energy systems can connect emissions reduction with business continuity, operating economics, infrastructure constraints, and organizational growth. That connection makes environmental performance part of a wider business discussion rather than a separate reporting exercise.

He points to a former colleague who holds responsibility for both sustainability and energy at JPMorgan Chase as an example of the direction in which the function can develop. The significance lies in the combination of environmental understanding with technical and operational responsibility. Energy management becomes one of the most direct ways for sustainability leadership to influence emissions, cost, resilience, and infrastructure performance simultaneously.

Energy Management As A Platform For Multiple Outcomes

Managing the corporate energy portfolio can advance decarbonization in several ways. Distributed renewable generation can reduce dependence on higher-emitting electricity sources, while battery storage can increase the usefulness of intermittent resources by storing energy when it is available and releasing it when it is needed.

This ability to shift energy across time changes the value of renewable generation. Solar or wind resources that vary with weather conditions become more controllable when paired with storage. The stored electricity can be used during periods of higher demand, higher cost, or reduced renewable output, allowing the company to make fuller use of the energy it produces.

Storage can also reduce dependence on high-emitting peaker plants. These facilities operate during periods of intense electricity demand and can have higher emissions than more efficient generation resources. When distributed batteries reduce demand from the grid during peak periods, they can lessen the need for the most carbon-intensive marginal generation.

The same systems can replace internal-combustion generators used for temporary or backup power. Batteries can provide electricity without the direct greenhouse gas emissions, air pollutants, noise, and fuel handling associated with conventional generators. This creates value for both decarbonization and local environmental performance.

These applications show how energy investments can support multiple outcomes without requiring separate systems for each objective. Renewable integration, peak management, backup power, and emissions reduction can become functions of the same distributed energy portfolio.

Distributed Energy Resources And Grid Support

The expansion of electricity demand places growing pressure on an already constrained power system. Van Hook points to concerns raised by reliability institutions and infrastructure organizations about the condition of the grid and its ability to accommodate significant new loads.

The challenge is not always a lack of total generating capacity. It is often a question of when and where electricity is needed. Demand concentrates during particular hours, creating periods when transmission, distribution, and generation assets operate near their limits even though substantial capacity remains underused at other times.

Distributed energy resources can help address this imbalance by reducing the pressure placed on the grid during peak periods. Batteries can charge when demand is lower and discharge when demand rises, allowing customers to manage more of their electricity needs without drawing additional power from the system at its most constrained moments.

The result can benefit both the customer and the wider network. Customers gain greater control over their energy use, while utilities receive support during periods when additional demand is most difficult to serve. Distributed storage can also create capacity for new economic activity by allowing existing infrastructure to be used more efficiently.

Van Hook connects this opportunity to the growth of data centers, whose electricity requirements are becoming a major consideration for utilities, regulators, communities, and technology companies. Research he cites suggests that distributed resources can create additional headroom for large new loads by managing demand more carefully and reducing the stress placed on local infrastructure.

This approach does not eliminate the need for grid investment. Transmission and distribution systems still require modernization and expansion. Distributed resources provide another mechanism for managing the period between rising demand and the completion of major infrastructure projects, which often require years of planning, permitting, and construction.

Virtual Power Plants And Coordinated Flexibility

The value of distributed storage increases when individual systems can operate together. A virtual power plant coordinates batteries and other resources located behind customer meters, allowing them to respond as a larger and more flexible energy asset.

Each battery remains connected to a particular building or site, but software can manage the combined portfolio centrally. The aggregated system can respond to grid conditions, support demand-management programs, and make stored energy available when it has the greatest value.

Van Hook presents virtual power plants as an emerging part of the energy system. Their significance lies in the ability to convert many small, distributed resources into a coordinated operating platform. The physical assets remain dispersed, but their response can be organized in a way that resembles a larger power resource.

For companies, participation can create new sources of value from energy assets already installed for resilience, renewable integration, or cost management. For the grid, coordinated batteries can reduce demand during peak periods and provide greater flexibility in areas where infrastructure is constrained.

Viridi’s work in this area reflects the importance of locating energy storage close to the loads it serves. Van Hook notes that the company’s systems are designed for installation behind the meter and, where permitted, indoors or near buildings and critical equipment. This proximity expands the range of applications and allows the storage resource to respond directly to customer and local grid requirements.

Resilience And The Cost Of Power Interruptions

Energy resilience is another business objective that aligns closely with decarbonization and distributed energy investment. Power interruptions can create substantial financial losses, particularly for organizations whose operations depend on continuous electricity service.

Van Hook notes that companies often evaluate interruption risk in terms of revenue lost for each hour without electricity. The cost varies by sector, but for manufacturing, data infrastructure, healthcare, logistics, and other critical operations, even a short outage can have serious consequences.

Battery storage provides a source of electricity that can respond immediately when grid service is interrupted. Unlike a conventional backup generator, a battery can also perform useful functions during normal operation. It can manage peak demand, store renewable electricity, respond to pricing differences, and participate in demand-management programs.

This ability to create value both during outages and during ordinary operation changes the economics of resilience. The asset does not remain idle while waiting for an emergency. It supports everyday energy management and becomes available for backup power when required.

Resilience therefore becomes part of a broader energy strategy rather than a separate contingency investment. The same battery that reduces emissions and energy costs can also protect operations, revenue, and critical services during grid disruptions.

Cost Management And Energy Market Participation

Energy storage can create financial value by shifting electricity use from high-cost periods to lower-cost periods. A battery can charge from on-site renewable generation or from the grid when demand and prices are lower, then discharge when electricity is more expensive.

The size of the opportunity depends on the local tariff structure, demand charges, electricity-market rules, and the customer’s operating profile. Van Hook says Viridi sees situations in which battery systems achieve rapid payback because of substantial differences in the cost of electricity across the day.

Storage can also support participation in demand-side management programs. Historically, demand response often requires customers to curtail operations, change temperature settings, or alter normal behavior when the grid needs relief. A battery changes that relationship by providing stored energy behind the meter.

The customer can reduce grid demand without necessarily reducing the activity occurring inside the building. Operations continue while the battery supplies part of the required electricity. This makes participation less disruptive and allows the company to provide grid support with fewer compromises to productivity or comfort.

The result is an energy asset that can contribute to cost reduction, revenue generation, grid services, resilience, and decarbonization. These benefits emerge from the same underlying capability to store electricity and use it at a more valuable time.

Time To Power And The Pace Of Economic Development

The time required to connect new loads to the grid is becoming an increasingly important business consideration. Companies may be prepared to build facilities or expand operations long before the required utility infrastructure can be completed.

Interconnection studies, permitting, equipment procurement, transmission upgrades, and distribution construction can create a significant gap between the moment a company needs power and the moment the grid can deliver it. For energy-intensive facilities, that delay can affect investment decisions, development schedules, and regional economic growth.

Van Hook presents distributed energy resources as one way to manage this gap. Batteries can be deployed more quickly than major grid infrastructure and can allow a customer to use its existing electricity connection more efficiently. Storage may not replace the eventual upgrade, but it can increase the productive capacity available while the larger project moves through development.

This time-to-power benefit becomes particularly relevant for data centers and other large loads. A distributed energy system can help manage peak demand, support existing infrastructure, and create additional operating flexibility during the years required to complete major utility improvements.

The business value extends beyond energy cost. Faster access to usable power can accelerate construction, support expansion, and reduce the financial consequences of waiting for infrastructure. Decarbonization becomes aligned with development because the same distributed resources that reduce emissions can also help make new economic activity possible.

Battery Safety And The Expansion Of Deployment Options

The wider adoption of battery storage depends on confidence that systems can operate safely near buildings, people, and critical equipment. Lithium-ion batteries carry a potential risk of thermal runaway, in which heat generated within a cell can spread to adjacent cells and create a larger event.

Viridi approaches this issue through a battery architecture designed to contain thermal propagation. Van Hook presents testing in which a cell is intentionally forced into failure while neighboring cells remain stable. The demonstration is intended to show that the event remains contained rather than spreading through the battery pack.

This safety capability expands the locations in which storage can be considered. Systems that can be permitted indoors, behind the meter, or near critical equipment create additional options for customers whose space, infrastructure, or operating requirements make conventional installations difficult.

Viridi also combines the physical system with remote communications and diagnostic capabilities. Operators can monitor the condition of the battery, understand its state, connect it with other building loads, and coordinate its interaction with the grid.

Safety and visibility become important parts of the commercial value of the system. A battery creates greater benefit when it can be located close to the customer, monitored continuously, and incorporated confidently into everyday operations.

These capabilities also support the development of virtual power plants. Distributed systems can participate more effectively when their condition is visible, their response can be controlled, and their placement allows them to serve both customer and grid needs.

The Evolving Role Of The Sustainability Function

Van Hook’s broader argument concerns the way sustainability leadership fits within the modern enterprise. The function begins with a strong focus on environmental impact, but its continued relevance depends on how effectively it connects those priorities with the company’s operating and financial objectives.

Energy provides one of the clearest opportunities for this integration. Decisions about electricity influence emissions, cost, resilience, capital investment, infrastructure access, and business continuity. A sustainability leader who understands these relationships can contribute to discussions that extend far beyond environmental reporting.

This does not reduce the importance of decarbonization. It embeds decarbonization within the decisions that shape the company’s performance. Emissions decline because the organization uses energy more efficiently, integrates renewable resources, manages peak demand, replaces combustion-based backup systems, and deploys storage where it creates value.

The sustainability function therefore becomes more operational and commercially connected. Its contribution lies not only in defining environmental objectives, but in helping the business identify investments and systems that deliver environmental and enterprise value together.

Van Hook presents this direction as a natural development for the field. Sustainability professionals continue to care deeply about climate and environmental performance, while also becoming more integrated with the objectives, constraints, and opportunities that determine how the company operates.

Decarbonization Across Multiple Megatrends

The energy system is changing through several developments at once. Electricity demand is rising, data centers are expanding, infrastructure is constrained, companies are seeking greater resilience, renewable generation is growing, and customers are looking for greater control over cost.

Each trend creates pressure, but each also creates an opportunity for better energy management. Distributed resources can make renewable generation more useful, reduce peak demand, support the grid, protect operations during outages, lower electricity costs, and provide capacity while larger infrastructure is developed.

Decarbonization becomes consistent with these megatrends because the technologies that address them can also reduce reliance on higher-emitting energy sources. The environmental result is strengthened when it is produced through investments that solve operational and financial problems at the same time.

Van Hook’s perspective presents sustainability as moving from a period dominated by formalization and reporting into one increasingly defined by integration and execution. Measurement continues to matter, but its purpose is to support decisions that improve the way energy is generated, stored, and used.

The reset he describes does not move sustainability away from its environmental purpose. It places that purpose within the business systems capable of producing durable results. Energy management becomes a platform through which decarbonization, resilience, grid support, cost reduction, and economic growth can advance together.

The multiple megatrends reshaping the energy sector are therefore not separate from the decarbonization agenda. When managed effectively, they become part of the same transformation.