>> thank you for joining us here today. for -- toult was it go from a cold polluter to one of the most renewable energy utilities friendly companies in the world? >> first of all, we were not totally a cold polluter, we already had a sensible amount of free noble energy. -- renewable energy. now, we have a lot more. was, in retrospect, things always seem easier than they actually were. it was a little bit of a mind changing exercise. it took a while. there was a point where everything turned around. there was a couple of years

where things really changed. 2012, 2014.ke after that, there was a little faster. shift, howook at the disruptive will it be for you, but also for your competitors? >> it is a big shift. there is a huge change coming. 50 to 20 years -- 15 to 20 years to really get to the end of this shift. it is a huge transition from ongoing. -- a huge transition, ongoing. it is very large. a periodccumulated over up i of -- >> what caused the change?

power, or the price? think come originally, it was some kind of a political decision that triggered the first moves. without that, probably would have taken a longer time. today, it is mostly economics. it is the economics driving the change today. widely, everywhere in the world. it is no more political, it has been at the beginning, now, it is just the technology solution. competition is changing. germany once more narrowly focused companies. >> if you look at what is happened today in the world, and the technology front, the disruption that is hitting the generation segment is incredible. because of this renewable wave coming in and continuing to change things.

change,ggers another which is the digital -- of networks. we hope call them -- we call them steel distribution rids. -- grids. this change, which is coming at us from all sides, disrupts the chain or modifies the chain in a way that is very difficult to predict going forward. i'm not saying next week or next month, but in the next years. we who think that it is very dangerous to take a bet and say only this part will be valuable in the tears, and that part not, i think it will be taking a while to really understand. >> what is a while, five years? i think in five to 10 years, you will see the transportation

-- transformation taking place. the value is what is at stake today. think it is much more valuable to manage the information then dump it away. spoke with us. it takes a lot of effort to manage the laxity. if you can do it, there is lots of value. >> is it a software company? they have changed so much. think of utilities as an enabler of things. energy enables you to do things. energy alone is nothing. dyilities should become somebo that enables other parts of society to do other things. utilities need to keep changing to adapt to what society needs from them. start provide other things together with energy.

that utilities keeps broadening the spectrum. not narrowing it. >> you think 2018 is the year where companies decide what the future will be? >> i think some of them have too.ed, and some others and other stuff, still to choose. even if they don't decide, they have decided. sometimes you decide even not deciding. >> where -- why is the greater acceptance and a greater -- greater presence of renewable energy in europe than in the u.s.? >> because europe started with a political ball. which the u.s. never had. the political angle that europe started with is still present in the trajectory. the u.s. never had that view. as a whole. in some parts of the u.s.,

california, had the same approach. some parts of the u.s. have a bigger chunk of renewable than others. >> you do very well in the u.s., what is your strategy? >> keep growing. there is an open and wide spray's -- wide space of growth in the u.s.. lots of professional background. it is one of the best markets that we see. highly competitive. great space. shift, what isa the next step? is very difficult to say. space. mobility , to the utilities's role in the evolution of cars, what is the role in heating, buildings,

cooking? there is a lot of spaces in which utilities can play a role. that happens when energy is being the carbonized. energy prices go dow they stabilize. all of a sudden, society uses electricity for things that were not electrified before. >> there is no doubt that this is definitely the path of that the world will take? >> it is happening. it is happening everywhere. let's say utilities have this lucky moment in which it will be a long moment in which their business is growing the catalyst. utilities becomes more and more the energy of the future. big -- business segment whose base volume keeps growing. that is great. it is a question of being conscious about it and really put it there. coming up, the google of

energy. we will talk about -- in search of the next big money maker. ♪

company was among the first of its kind to invest heavily in renewables. the bet paid off. making it one of the biggest green power operators in north america. as incentives have started to are turning to technology in search for the next moneymaker. innovators explore emerging industries like smart homes and electric vehicles in the hope of finding the next big savings. how do you drive innovation? is it sustainability, a driver

for innovation, or the other way around? the keyinability was factor for innovation to start. honestly. we were innovating only take a logically -- only technologically. and not that much. we needed to have something that drove innovation. i think the concept that we need to have a more sustainable business model to go forward required a change in the way we thought about business model. that was the innovation stimulus that we needed. sustainability need to stimulate innovation. trick toad the second say let's stop trying to innovate alone and let's try to find out who is already innovating outside that can help us. open up to help from outside.

we established sensors in many parts of the world. that we brought problems we were not able to solve and ask for innovators to help us in doing that. that was great. that helped a lot. >> this is a website? or they were trying to figure something out? >> we started with a website after. we went first to israel. then silicon valley. we opened up a hub in moscow. rio. santiago. everywhere we saw some concentration of innovation we put our people, opened up a small place and -- we broughtfor problems. we brought them problems to solve and said thanks, now we try. we have incredible results with this. we really found things that we would never even think about.

>> how difficult is it to do in renewables? there are many more market players. it is a little -- it is little bits. >> it was a lot like that in the beginning. in the beginning, there were a lot of comments because we started trying to develop projects in areas that had no subsidy, no incentive nation. only competitive battlegrounds. we got a lot of criticism at the beginning saying why are you so stupid? we said because we think we subsidies -- we think subsidies are going to and. we need to prepare for what they are not going to be around. we want this to be sustainable. for competition. we prepared for the moment when an open,s would be global, very wide and fierce battleground.

today, we have a huge competitive advantage. >> so you go to them and tell them this is my problem, then you buy them when they come with the answer? do you invest? >> we don't. we have partnership with funds that do that. we don't get into that. >> why not? >> we cannot make a mistake. we are not able to make mistakes. that is the mentality we have. if you cannot make a wrong investment, you better not invest. we are genetically not able to do that. let other people do it. what we do is we take the startups and bring them to the market quickly. deploy them on the large-scale that we have, and do not pretend to have exclusive rights. we want them to become cheap, available ways of generating

energy for everybody. we see competition between energy sources, not players. that is the competitive fight we are in. >> how realistic is it t electric vehicles become a meaningful source of revenue for you? >> they will become, obviously. >> 10 years? >> maybe less. we are at the beginning of this huge curve, in the next year we will all left saying how stupid we were when we tried to predict the growth of electric vehicles. if you see the billions that manufacturers are throwing into investing into electric vehicle development, we have no doubt that this will become a huge business. we like the word electric. the carquestion whether , or electric word will prepare -- prevail.

>> what do you think? don't care. as long as it is electric, we love it. >> at does not mean it is a car manufacturer? >> no. i think manufacturers have -- they know how to mass-produce things. is do youdvantage know how to mass-produce millions and millions of vehicles in the right way. in the less offensive. in the most safeway. that is how you build over decades. i think they have that. >> what is the number one question that you have? is it batteries? >> it is more about productive ability and handling capability. what can we do with all that we have? how much can we explain? predict?

improve? i would say, today and in the next years, the most important key or capability that we lack is the capability to put together business concepts in the same brain. really difficult. >> do you think anyone will build new gas power plants? >> they have still a future. a lot less than before. sellingoining and i was gas power plants. i think it is definitely not the same future that we had 10 years ago. >> if you look at the u.n. sustainable development goals, are they too wide? >> they are not wide. they are 17. there are lots. they try to improve the world.

i think they deserve some credit. 17, we focus on four. we narrowed it down a bit. that the busiwe are and not cover health stuff. we are working and trying to channel all our sustainability efforts into those four. andh helps us to motivate drive people in the right direction. enough.od is not good you need to know what could you want to do. >> think you so much. coming up, powering ahead. drive -- required to and the u.n.. ♪

>> throughout his 18 years, he

has been at the forefront of change in the energy business. management roles have included heading up the company's renewable units, which is a leading player in the industry. .e is not just a leading light he is also been given the key role at the u.n., task with delivering sustainable development program. what kind of skills and foresight does it take to lead in the power space? >> have you always been passing -- passionate about sustainability or did it come what he started working in utilities? >> it came when i was working in utilities. it is something that comes to you when you work in this kind of company that has to do society. only thrives if the society is in good hands. otherwise, it cannot, no matter how well it is managed, it cannot work well if it does not work in a society that is -- >> you can say that about every

industry. >> yes and no. utility is a long-term thing. you can sell furniture and go away. go somewhere else. utilities, not thak to move. you really need to work for the society you are in and that is why sustainability is important for some industries that have a big impact on society. did you look at the business case for it? >> it was at that time. there is obviously a business case. there's no question that the value you share with companies, or with people that are living in -- around you. what you create with them can the much more if done in an inclusive way. if it is done in a sustainable way. it is an incredible change. this triggers a different line

of thinking. which stimulates innovation. it works beautifully. it requires a little change in the mindset of managers. >> you must've had struggles when you started out. >> i did. i did. at the beginning. smalle did, we used examples and built around those examples. a good story. people bought into them. it was an example building change. it worked like that. >> when you look at clients, how can you tell the companies that do good for real and the ones that just do it for pr reasons? >> very simple. it is fake versus real concentration. is about what they say, what they do, and at the end, it is about what they actually and up

providing with societies that live with them. just something that scratches the service and you see it immediately. very simple. >> what kind of leader are you? micromanage? > i changed a lot. i used to micromanage. that wasderstood that the maximum i could do myself. i trust people a lot basically. i trust a lt. orust at least two times three. that is a lot. >> it seems like micromanaging. , at a certain age and certain experience. i know what is happening forward. i always look a couple steps ahead. if i see they are going to make a mistake, i don't try to stop that, i tried to go and protect them after.

so that they learn. that is what i really do. sometimes, they joke with me and say why did you tell us, i prefer that. it works. >> what kind of advice would you give, when you are starting out? be, keep your mind alert. job, if youth any get good at it, after a while, you acquire a certain safe feeling about what you know, what you think you know, things as they unfold in front of you, and you lose touch. you should always be on the edge. .hings change quicker always quicker. even if you think though they have to change quicker, they change quicker. be on the edge. never feel comfortable. >> how much focused you put on

diversity? >> this has to do with that. diversity stimulates this edging feeling. you always have a different mind. when you talk about diversity in , really,der diversity i think it is the mindset of diversity that matters. that has to do with culture, , and inclination. character. i tried to mix different people. in my team you find completely different people together, which makes life not easy, but it generates thinking and ideas. >> do you ever worry about an activist investor coming in? >> no. >> why not? >> why should i worry about it? if it is something that i should worry about than it is not the activist, it is that thing.

the activist is about something wrong. if they are targeting a company, it means something in the company does not work. >> thanks for joining us. ♪ two, down, back up!

our phones are more than just phones. they're pocket-sized personal trainers. last minute gift finders. [phone voice] destination ahead. and discoverers of new places. it's the internet in your hand. that's why xfinity mobile can be included with xfinity internet which could save you $400 or more a year. it's a new kind of network designed to save you money. click, call, or visit a store today.

♪ erik: coming up on "bloomberg best," the stories that shaped the week in business around the world. trade tensions, china and america's allies battle the trump administration's isolationist policies. another week of actions and reactions on global trade. >> i regard this as much like a family quarrel. erik: trade is issue number one as g7 leaders meet in québec. president trump and shinzo abe hold a pregame huddle at