ALICIA ARGÜELLO
THE ENERGY INTERVIEW
Since the US and Israel’ s military campaign against Iran began in February, the global energy sector has been reeling. Almost immediately, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway off the country’ s south coast through which almost all of the Middle East’ s waterborne oil and gas is ordinarily shipped.
Now, months after the conflict’ s start, the strait remains far from fully operational. This has left the world with a huge deficit of fuel – around 20 % of normal supplies. Prices have spiked and shortages have been keenly felt as a result.
In times of crisis such as these, the typical reaction of businesses is to go into self-preservation mode – consolidating and reducing spending.
In the context of the energy transition, however, this could be a missed opportunity. With the global hydrocarbon market experiencing its second major crisis in four years, many industry experts believe now is the time to invest wholeheartedly in electrification, renewables and climate technology.
This is the position of Alicia Argüello, the Global Head of Sustainability at Hitachi Energy. For her, this kind of approach will help to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, thereby circumventing all the instability and price volatility of the market.
In this Q & A with Energy Digital, Alicia elaborates on how businesses should be adapting to the crisis.
Q. PLEASE INTRODUCE YOURSELF AND TELL US ABOUT YOUR ROLE AT HITACHI ENERGY.
» I’ m Alicia Argüello, Global Head of Sustainability at Hitachi Energy. I joined in 2019 with a background in environmental engineering and a PhD in natural sciences, and today I lead our global sustainability function.
We have built the function from the ground up – from our first sustainability report to a CDP A score and strong progress on our Scope 1 and 2 targets. But metrics are not the end goal. The real work is embedding sustainability into how we run the business – across environmental, social and governance priorities – making it practical across the organisation and turning it into a real driver of business value.
ALICIA ARGÜELLO
TITLE: GLOBAL HEAD OF SUSTAINABILITY
COMPANY: HITACHI ENERGY INDUSTRY: ENERGY
Alicia is a sustainability professional with several years of experience in industry and academia, having worked at ABB and Hitachi after earning her PhD in natural sciences.
24 July 2026