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More than 110 companies including Nestle, Ikea, Uber, Volvo Cars and Mahindra Group have urged governments around the world to place electrification at the centre of their economic strategies, arguing that continued dependence on fossil fuels is exposing businesses to damaging price shocks, supply chain disruptions and investment uncertainty.
According to a report by Reuters, in an open statement released on Monday and coordinated by the We Mean Business Coalition and the Global Renewables Alliance, 112 businesses with a combined annual revenue of roughly $1.5 trillion called for policy measures to accelerate electrification across transport, buildings and industry.
The intervention comes at a time when governments and companies are reassessing their energy strategies following years of market turbulence driven by geopolitical conflicts, supply disruptions and commodity price volatility. Most recently, tensions linked to the Iran conflict have renewed concerns about the vulnerability of global energy markets.
“Continued reliance on volatile fuel markets exposes economies to disruptions that drive price spikes, destabilise supply chains and delay investment,” the companies said in the statement.
The coalition spans sectors ranging from consumer goods and healthcare to industrial manufacturing and transportation. Besides Nestle and Ikea, signatories include Iberdrola, Nikon Corporation, Levi Strauss, Volvo Cars and ride-hailing giant Uber.
Energy security takes centre stage
While electrification has long been championed as a pathway to lower emissions, businesses are increasingly framing it as an economic and energy security imperative.
The companies argued that reducing exposure to fossil fuel markets would help economies become more resilient to external shocks while improving long-term competitiveness. Electrification, they said, can lower overall energy demand and make greater use of increasingly affordable renewable power sources.
The call reflects a broader shift in corporate thinking, where energy security concerns are becoming as important as climate commitments. Executives increasingly view volatile fossil fuel prices as a business risk capable of eroding margins, disrupting operations and complicating investment decisions.
Businesses seek policy certainty
Despite growing corporate support for electrification, the companies stressed that progress will depend heavily on government action.
The statement called for predictable policy frameworks, improvements to electricity market design, faster permitting processes and greater investment in power grids to support rising electricity demand.
Business leaders argue that policy uncertainty remains one of the biggest barriers to large-scale investments in electrification technologies and infrastructure.
Push aligns with global climate talks
The appeal coincides with the start of London Climate Action Week, which is expected to attract more than 75,000 participants across over 1,000 events, bringing together policymakers, investors and corporate leaders.
It also comes ahead of the COP31 climate summit in November, where Turkey is pushing for countries to support a global goal of meeting 35 per cent of the world’s energy demand through electricity by 2035.
Many of the technologies required to electrify major sectors of the economy are already commercially available, the companies noted, suggesting that the challenge is increasingly one of deployment rather than innovation.
The growing corporate push underscores how electrification is evolving from a climate policy objective into a broader economic strategy. For businesses grappling with recurring energy price shocks and geopolitical uncertainty, the transition is increasingly being viewed not as an environmental choice but as a competitive necessity.
With inputs from agencies.
