War in Europe and the Middle East. Rising energy prices. Political instability. Climate disasters. Every time we look at the news, it feels like the world is moving from one crisis to the next. In such times, sustainability can start to sound like a luxury – something we prioritise when the world is stable. But can we really afford to put sustainability on hold during crises?
When Priorities Shift: Sustainability during Crisis
It’s easy to talk about green investments and responsible business when the economy is booming. However, when energy costs skyrocket and budgets tighten, sustainability is often the first thing to go. Suddenly, what was a moral imperative becomes a financial burden.
According to the United Nations (UN), the escalating global conflicts have substantially impacted progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In the UN’s report, published in June 2024, they described the status of progress against SDGs as ‘severely off track’. Global conflicts, climate shocks, economic turmoil, and the COVID-19 pandemic were cited as impacting progress.
These crises not only slow down global progress towards the SDGs but also reshape how policymakers in the EU talk about sustainability. This is visible in the debates around ‘Omnibus’ reform packages, where the Commission frames the situation as a combined crisis of ‘security’ and ‘competitiveness’, and uses the crisis to justify simplifying, delaying or weakening parts of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).
The True Cost of Unsustainability
The scientific consensus could not be clearer. Climate change is ‘code red’ for humanity. But the crisis goes beyond rising temperatures; research indicates that humanity has already breached at least six of the nine identified planetary boundaries. This transgression undermines the stability and resilience of the climate, the biosphere, freshwater systems and global nutrient cycles, and increases the risk of abrupt, potentially irreversible environmental change leading to more frequent and intense extreme weather, to accelerating species loss, ecosystem collapse, soil degradation, and expanding dead zones in lakes, rivers, and coastal seas.
Short-term economic thinking – cutting environmental investments to protect immediate profits – only increases long-term financial risks. The European Commission itself notes that ‘20 % of global GDP is expected to shrink by 2050 due to climate change’, with ‘annual economic damage could reach EUR 35,6 trillion, which is six times the cost of limiting global warming to 2°C’.
When policymakers and business leaders treat sustainability as a burden in times of crisis, they are gambling with the stability of the economic system itself. The more dependent we are on finite resources and volatile energy markets, the more fragile we can become in the face of crisis. The war between Russia and Ukraine is an example of that.
The European Commission acknowledges that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has exposed the EU’s vulnerability to energy-related political pressure. Russia has repeatedly used gas as a geopolitical weapon, cutting supplies in 2006, 2009, 2014 and 2021. In addition, Gazprom – Russia’s state-controlled exporter – has been the subject of several competition investigations, including for price manipulation, and strategic underfilling of storage sites ahead of the invasion.
In 2022, gas prices averaged €125/MWh, which is six to eight times higher than before the crisis. This severely weakened the competitiveness of European industry and caused major challenges for households and businesses across Europe. High gas prices also led to rising inflation and social unrest in several member states.
This experience has exposed how dependence on unsustainable energy sources can itself become a source of insecurity and economic instability. While the challenges are global, regional actors like the European Union can play a crucial role in deciding whether sustainability is sidelined in the name of ‘emergency’ or instead embedded at the core of crisis response.
EU’s response: sustainability as part of crisis management
With the Clean Industrial Deal, the EU has outlined concrete actions to turn decarbonisation into a driver of growth for European industries. According to this Commission Communication, the main objective is to lower energy prices, create quality jobs, and provide the right conditions for companies to thrive. The Clean Industrial Deal aims to boost demand for European clean technologies and products, strengthen the EU’s global leadership, and enhance competitiveness in the global market. Markets for clean products will reduce costs and make sustainable alternatives more accessible to people. Circularity is also a key aspect of the deal, which aims to reduce waste and prolong the lifespan of materials through recycling, reuse, and sustainable production.
In June 2025, the Commission also presented a proposal on phasing out Russian natural gas imports and improving monitoring of potential energy dependencies. The main objectives are to phase out all imports of Russian natural gas to the EU by 2027, strengthen the monitoring of energy dependencies and supply security, and amend the Security of supply regulation to include new crisis management mechanisms.
These measures can indicate that the EU no longer regards energy and sustainability merely as an economic matter, but also as a matter of security.
EU Omnibus package: a very different crisis response
At the same time as the EU is using the energy and security crisis to justify faster decarbonisation and industrial transformation, we see a very different kind of crisis response emerging in the so-called Omnibus proposals. These are legislative packages that bundle together amendments to several key sustainability instruments, including the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the EU Taxonomy and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) in the name of ‘simplification’ for businesses and restoring ‘competitiveness’ in times of geopolitical and economic turmoil.
The Omnibus process is not just a technical clean-up of overly complex rules. It is part of a broader deregulation drive that has gathered pace after years of efforts to promote corporate sustainability. What makes this particularly worrying is the weakness of the evidence base used to justify the Omnibus. Rather than being grounded in sustainability research and a clear understanding of the risks of ‘continued extreme unsustainabilities’, the deregulation push is driven by traditional economic narratives that treat environmental and social governance as a drag on growth.
The Omnibus packages illustrate a dark side of the EU’s crisis response. In one version of managing the crisis, the EU uses war, energy crisis and inflation as arguments for weakening and postponing sustainability obligations, presenting this as necessary to protect short-term competitiveness. In another version, which is still struggling to gain the upper hand, crises are treated as reasons to accelerate the transition to a sustainable and resilient economy. The Omnibus process shows how easily the first version gets the upper hand, even though it can undermine the Union’s own long-term security and prosperity.
Sustainability is the Foundation for a Stable Future
The overlapping crises we face – economic, environmental, geopolitical – underscore the need for sustainability more than ever. Sustainability is not a project for 'better times' – it’s the foundation for getting through a crisis. The real test for the European Union in the coming years is not whether it can temporarily shield companies from higher costs, but whether it dares to let sustainability set the direction of its crisis response. Instead of using ‘security’ and ‘competitiveness’ as reasons to dilute or delay existing sustainability rules in Omnibus packages, the Union should treat them as reasons to strengthen corporate sustainability reporting and due diligence. The Omnibus process postpones and weakens key sustainability rules just when science and even the Commission’s own analysis show that economic and societal risks of continued unsustainability are existential. A credible crisis response would be to ensure that every security measure is checked against planetary boundaries and social foundations, so that short-term relief does not lock us further into an unsustainable path. In a world of converging crises, there is no lasting security without sustainability.
