Sustainability in the Shadow of Conflict: Resources, Risk and Responsibility in a Fracturing World
In his recent reflections on the tumultuous turn of our times, John Elkington — one of the architects of modern sustainability thinking — has reminded us that the familiar contours of markets, environment and social purpose are being upended by forces that once seemed peripheral. What was once marginal — disruption, crisis, chaotic transition — is now central to how we must think about sustainability for the coming decade. Building on this, I put forward here three additional dimensions that we must also reflect on.
The old Cold War ended more than three decades ago, but a new contest — over land, minerals and energy — is intensifying in ways that threaten open conflict. Ukraine’s tragic battlefield has been analysed not only as a struggle over territory and sovereignty but also over critical materials that underpin tomorrow’s technologies, such as rare earth minerals and other strategic inputs. While rarely stated in overt terms, these underlying resource dynamics cast long shadows over geopolitical decisions.
Elsewhere, Venezuela’s vast oil reserves — the largest on Earth — have become entangled in political confrontation, drawing renewed attention from U.S. policymakers and corporate interests in the wake of regime change narratives and strategic repositioning. Recent news coverage highlights how Venezuelan oil is being thrust back into global markets under U.S. influence, with implications not just for energy flows but for climate imperatives.
Far to the north, Greenland — long touted for its rare earth minerals — sits at the intersection of climate change, extraction economics and superpower rivalry. Melting ice is making strategic shipping routes and mineral deposits more accessible, inviting renewed interest from global actors hoping to secure technological supply chains. Proposals by U.S. politicians to assert influence over Greenland speak to a long-recognised reality: control over raw materials is no longer just commercial, it’s geopolitical. A new wave of empire-building has already begun.
If sustainability was ever narrowly defined as decarbonisation or resource efficiency, those boundaries have been blown wide open. The question now is whether the world will tolerate “undeclared wars” over resources that matter not only to economies but to national security and technological dominance. The danger is not just rhetoric — it is miscalculation in a world where competitive pressures are intense and patience is short.
It is no longer hypothetical that the Arctic — one of the planet’s most fragile ecosystems — will become a central arena for fossil fuel expansion. In recent policy moves, the U.S. administration has begun to reopen Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other northern lands to oil and gas leasing, reversing decades of environmental protection and signaling a broader acceleration of drilling activities in extreme environments.
This is not just an American story. Across the Arctic, climate change itself is reshaping physical geography — opening sea routes, exposing mineral-rich lands and enticing governments and companies to exploit what was once inaccessible. Such development may offer short-term energy gains, but the environmental costs — from disturbance of permafrost to threats to indigenous cultures and wildlife — are profound. These actions also sit uneasily with existing climate commitments, framing a stark choice between planetary stewardship and resource nationalism.
For sustainability professionals, this signals a moment of reckoning. The old assumption that markets would naturally transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewables is no longer assured. Instead, resource exploitation is being cast as national security policy, even as climate science warns that every new barrel extracted at the poles accelerates warming.
While the world grapples with these geopolitical and environmental shifts, economic flows are increasingly shaped by sectors traditionally outside mainstream sustainability debates. Defence contractors, weapons manufacturers and security-related industries are, in many markets, the beneficiaries of heightened geopolitical risk. In the United States and Europe, defence spending has surged, cushioning parts of the economy even as climate-linked sectors struggle for investment and political support.
This raises uncomfortable but unavoidable questions about the ethics of sustainability. For too long, the discipline has focused on climate, ecosystems and corporate responsibility — all crucial — but often without giving equal weight to human security, peace and conflict. Sustainability must grapple with the reality that violence, war and resource competition are drivers of human suffering on an enormous scale.
It also forces us to rethink what we mean by winners and losers in the transition to a sustainable world. Defence firms and military suppliers might prosper in a fragmented global order, but at what cost to human wellbeing? And how do sustainability frameworks account for — and seek to mitigate — the human dimensions of insecurity, displacement and geopolitical strife?
Towards a Broader Sustainability Imperative
The emerging picture suggests that sustainability — as a concept and as practice — cannot remain confined to emissions targets or corporate scorecards. Instead, it must integrate geopolitical risk, resource governance, ethical defence, and conflict prevention into how we think about long-term resilience and equitable futures.
Elkington has often urged us to look beyond traditional boundaries and to imagine systemic change that embraces complexity rather than shunning it. The idea of a sixth wave centred on renewable energy and resource efficiency offers a compelling long-term vision. The challenge is that the path to that future runs directly through today’s realities of resource competition, geopolitical tension and, in some cases, outright conflict — which sustainability thinking cannot afford to ignore. In turbulent times like these, that vision is not merely an intellectual exercise — it may be the groundwork for averting the very wars that threaten to eclipse our environmental concerns.
Jon Woodhead, Challenge Sustainability