Much research focuses on energy policy from the perspective of a company, country or bloc perspective but less frequently on the societal perspective. Examining how Energy Productivity and the way in which it is formulated is one example of the ways in which boundary effects and the ability to “game the system” can undermine or assist efforts to capture policy benefits for all humanity. Other examples include the use of administered commodity prices to balance economic efficiency against social objective and a framework for understanding energy technology transitions to balance the trade off between speed and societal burden.