How do severe recessions, such as those brought about by the Global Financial Crisis orthe COVID-19 pandemic, affect the composition of energy generation between greenand dirty sources? Does creative destruction during recessions result in a sustainedgreening of the energy mix? The empirical analysis presented in this paper highlights thatrecessions and crises result in permanent, albeit small, increases in energy efficiencyand in the share of renewables in total electricity. These effects are larger, however, whencomplemented with strong environmental policies – both market-based measures such astaxes on pollutants, trading schemes and feed-in-tariffs, and non-market measures suchas emission and fuel standards and R&D investment and subsidies – that incentivise and hasten the transition towards renewable sources of energy.