Open Access — CC BY 4.0Peer-Reviewed Working PaperCISR-WP-2026-04

Boardroom Dynamics in the Energy Transition: Fiduciary Duties and Net-Zero Capital Expenditure

schoolProf. Eleanor Vance(Director & Chair in Sustainable Enterprise)
schoolDr. Marcus Thorne(Senior Research Fellow in SME Industrial Systems)
calendar_todayPublished March 2026
menu_bookWorking Paper No. CISR-WP-2026-04
fingerprintDOI: 10.1787/cisr-pb-2026-02
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Executive AbstractScholarly Overview

Corporate directors face heightened exposure to transition risks under emerging corporate governance directives. This policy brief analyzes legal standards across European jurisdictions, examining how corporate boards balance short-term shareholder return expectations with long-cycle capital expenditure required for multi-decade net-zero compliance.

Controlled Vocabulary / Indexing Keywords
Corporate GovernanceBoard OversightFiduciary DutyEnergy TransitionCapital Expenditure

Standard Academic Citation

Cite this scholarly manuscript using official bibliographic conventions

Prof. Eleanor Vance, Dr. Marcus Thorne (2026). Boardroom Dynamics in the Energy Transition: Fiduciary Duties and Net-Zero Capital Expenditure. CISR Policy Briefs, CISR-WP-2026-04, pp. 1–38. https://doi.org/10.1787/cisr-pb-2026-02
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CISR Working Paper Series — WP-2026-04ISSN 2753-9128

Boardroom Dynamics in the Energy Transition: Fiduciary Duties and Net-Zero Capital Expenditure

Peer-Reviewed Working Paper • Section 1

1. Institutional Background and SME Asymmetries
Small and medium-sized enterprises constitute over 98% of business enterprises within Northern European industrial supply chains and account for more than 60% of manufacturing value added. However, academic frameworks regarding circular business models (CBMs) have predominantly derived empirical grounding from diversified multinational enterprises.

Unlike global conglomerates equipped with dedicated sustainability accounting divisions, SMEs face structural barriers including high initial capital expenditure requirements, scarce access to reverse supply chain infrastructure, and uncertain residual asset valuation under conventional bank lending covenants.

2. Empirical Field Audit Methodology
To overcome self-reporting biases prevalent in cross-sectional survey research, this inquiry executed 18 longitudinal on-site facility audits across automated manufacturing plants in Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. Primary observations focused on material sorting throughput, closed-loop polymer recycling yields, and energy consumption metrics during reverse assembly runs.

Centre for Innovation and Sustainability Research (CISR)Page 1 of 38

Scholarly References

4 Indexed Citations
[1]
Bocken, N. M. P., de Pauw, I., Bakker, C., & van der Grinten, B. (2016). “Product design and business model strategies for a circular economy”. Journal of Industrial and Production Engineering, vol. 33, no. 5, pp. 308–320.
open_in_newOpen DOIlinkOpen Source
[2]
Geissdoerfer, M., Savaget, P., Bocken, N. M. P., & Hultink, E. J. (2017). “The Circular Economy – A new sustainability paradigm?”. Journal of Cleaner Production, vol. 143, no. 1, pp. 757–768.
open_in_newOpen DOIlinkOpen Source
[3]
Korhonen, J., Honkasalo, A., & Seppälä, J. (2018). “Circular Economy: The Concept and its Limitations”. Ecological Economics, vol. 143, no. C, pp. 37–46.
open_in_newOpen DOIlinkOpen Source
[4]
Teece, D. J. (2018). “Business models and dynamic capabilities”. Long Range Planning, vol. 51, no. 1, pp. 40–49.
open_in_newOpen DOIlinkOpen Source