What If Sustainability Swings Right?

Where politics goes, social agendas often follow.

S-S-S-S (JE, via Artiphoria)

To date, sustainability has largely been a left-wing, liberal project. True, scientifically literate right-wing politicians like Britain’s former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher have backed climate action—but too often, and this statement is based on observation rather than ideology, “scientifically literate” and “right-wing” are mutually exclusive terms.

The current attempts of Trump’s administration to obliterate or cripple the very real progress made to date in areas like clean energy, as with the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), alongside his efforts to eviscerate the Environmental Protection Agency’s climate programs, cannot reverse the underlying realities. Insurers can see the evidence even if many politicians choose not to. And, unlike Trump, whose speeches have been shown to be riddled with untruths, work on things like planetary boundaries is rooted in the latest peer-reviewed science.

Which raises the question: What would the sustainability agenda look like if it were recast as a right-wing, illiberal project?

Order, not justice

This is not something I want to see, instead something I see as very likely to happen as we move toward the 20230s. And my sense, aided and abetted by ChatGPT 5, is that if sustainability does come back as a right-wing, increasingly illiberal agenda, it would be less about justice and more about order.

Less about inclusion, more about protection. We would expect to hear a lot less about global commons and a lot more about national or regional blocks and fortresses.

What follows is not consciously partisan. Instead, at this stage, I am simply asking “What If?” We could—and should—ask the same question of Communist and/or autocratic regimes.

But if the rightward swing continues in regions like Europe and Latin America, I very much suspect that even some left-wing and centrist political parties will be forced to reframe key elements of their change agendas in at least some of the ways outlined below. I don’t think this will be helpful in terms of absolute progress, though it could help slow and even reverse the recessionary pressures.

Let’s look at the question through five different lenses: values, policy, tools, narratives and likely tensions.

1. Values

If we look at centrist/liberal-left-wing version of sustainability they tend to be framed around equity, global solidarity, intergenerational justice, planetary boundaries, and inclusion. Indeed, one almost feels stupid for stating the apparently blindingly obvious.

By contrast, the right-wing/illiberal/autocratic framing of sustainability-related topics tends to focus on national survival, strength, sovereignty, and security. Instead of encouraging people to “save the planet for everyone,” we might hear calls to “protect our homeland, our people, our resources.”

Such calls are particularly likely in regions that are—or feel they are—under pressure from the “wrong sort” of inward migration.

2. Policy

In countries and regions winging right, climate action would be framed as a question of national security. Voters and citizens would be encouraged to help protect borders from climate refugees, to secure food and water supplies, and to achieve energy efficiency and, ultimately, independence.

Nature tends to be celebrated as a symbol of a nation’s heritage, even by those most involved in destroying it. From this perspective, protecting national landscapes, forests, and biodiversity may be pitched in terms of powerful symbols of national pride and cultural identity, rather than to achieve global biodiversity goals.

And we would see a great deal more resource nationalism, with governments moving to control—and even weaponize—access to rare earth metals and minerals, for example, and to exert their power over water, forests and fisheries.

3. Tools

Where sustainability-related goals are embraced, expect to see various forms of authoritarian enforcement. These might include top-down bans, strict rationing schemes, and surveillance to enforce sustainable behaviors—including consumption quotas and restricted mobility for all or certain groups.

As we have seen in China, we might see strong state direction of the development and deployment of green technology, perhaps framed as a new arms race (“whoever wins batteries, solar, nuclear, wins the future”).

And right-ring governments and regimes might opt for exclusionary politics. They might decide to favor “Our citizens first” in climate relief, aid, and adaptation. They would certainly be more likely to ring-fence their borders with walls and security perimeters to deter migration, whether it be fuelled by poverty, hunger or conflict, powered by economic ambition, or driven by climate change.

4. Narratives

Instead of Greta Thunberg–style declarations of “moral urgency,” we would likely see new forms of eco-nationalism or eco-authoritarianism. “Keep our land pure and strong.” “Our forests/soils/waters/fisheries are not for outsiders to exploit.” “Resilience is patriotism.”

George Orwell would have a field day. And we might also expect right-wing politicians to borrow heavily from older conservative traditions of stewardship (“don’t waste what you inherit”), albeit stripped of most of the universalism that has inspired everything from the Brundtland Commission report back in 1987 to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015.

5. Tensions

With levels of political tension already rising around the world, the likelihood is that this new framing for the sustainability agenda would simply throw gasoline on the flames.

One problem for more liberal champions of sustainability would be that some illiberal approaches may “work” faster, for example in cutting emissions, since enforcement is easier in authoritarian regimes. But the Brundtland definition had economic, social and environmental dimensions. Pursued in the wrong way, “sustainability” could promote deep injustice, including exclusion, surveillance and various forms of eco-fascism.

Nothing here is set in stone, at least yet, but rather than simply assuming a smooth, liberal, democratic run-up to a successful outcome with the SDGs in 2030, perhaps we should be pondering what happens if two things happen.

First, the SDGs largely prove to be a disappointment, up to seventeen damp squibs. And second, President Trump proves to be not so much an aberration as a golden-dyed straw in an intensifying, worldwide wind of system change. Just not the sort of system change we had in mind.

John Elkington is Founder & Global Ambassador at Volans. His personal website can be accessed here. His new Countercurrent website can be found here. His latest book is Tickling Sharks: How We Sold Business on Sustainability(Fast Company Press, 2024).

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“By coaching the enlightened—and confronting the laggards—John has helped put the issues and opportunities firmly on the top tables of some of the world’s largest and most impactful businesses.”

SIR DAVE LEWIS, former CEO, Tesco PLC; chair, WWF-UK

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