Webinar recap: Fascism’s impact on sustainability

In 2025, the number of published sustainability reports in the US has dropped by 50% so far this year, according to a recent study from The Conference Board Companies are weighing whether it’s riskier to speak up and face ESG backlash or stay quiet and be accused of backtracking.

This isn’t hypothetical. Target has rolled back DEI commitments following months of political pressure and consumer pushback. Meanwhile, on the climate front, JPMorgan Chase softened its climate ambitions by backing away from strict 1.5°C targets and withdrawing from the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, marking a significant shift in corporate climate leadership. Both moves sparked backlash from activists, shareholders, and customers alike.

This is unfortunate, however, not surprising. According to recent data from GlobeScan, 90% of US sustainability experts say the backlash is intensifying.

What does the rollback of climate commitments and the erosion of labour rights have to do with fascism? Our webinar, co-hosted with The CSO Shop, explored how authoritarian forces are influencing and shaping the systems we work in.

We were joined by Dr. Stephen Backhouse, a political philosopher who helps organisations understand Christian nationalism, authoritarianism, and the ideologies that quietly but profoundly affect our work.

Stephen holds a doctorate from Oxford University, where his research focused on Søren Kierkegaard’s critique of nationalism. His book Kierkegaard’s Critique of Christian Nationalism was published in 2011.

Stephen has spent over 20 years working in academic and leadership settings, training future leaders and challenging the rise of Christian nationalism in institutional spaces. His work now focuses on helping organisations solve complex systemic problems, particularly in the areas of sustainability, regeneration, and organisational health.

Having witnessed firsthand how religious nationalism has shaped political movements, growing up in a conservative culture himself, Stephen brings a critical lens to the cultural forces influencing sustainability today. He now works with everyone from climate scientists to corporate leaders, helping them understand and respond to the ideological challenges facing their work.

The three key topics we discussed were:

– What is fascism? And what are the limitations of the term?
– How is the political moment affecting sustainability work?
– How can we better understand this lens as practitioners, see it as a critical barrier to achieving sustainability goals and start to resist its impact?

What is fascism?

Fascism is a mode or way of thinking that describes when a majority powerful population blames a minority for its perceived problem, for example a loss of status or power.

We are seeing this ideology play out today quite clearly. One of the worst ways we are seeing it today is with the far-right Israeli government enacting what many now recognise as a genocidal campaign against Palestinians, systematically displacing communities, blocking aid, and justifying mass civilian deaths under the guise of security. We’re also seeing the rise of facism across Europe, including France and Poland, as well as Brazil and the US.

But fascism is a word that often raises more barriers than aids understanding. The collective reference point of fascism tends to be The Nazis in 1930s Germany. Is what we see today as bad as what happened in Nazi Germany? If your answer to that is no, you may dismiss that what we’re seeing today is fascism. Dr Backhouse therefore prefers to use the term ‘hard right’, or ‘Nationalist’ or ‘Christian Nationalist’. This is not to be confused with Christianity or religion, as this has very little to do with religion or religious extremism. Christian Nationalism is less about faith or scripture, and more the belief that Christians have built Western Civilisation, they have lost control over that civilisation, and they want it back.

It’s not about converting others or enforcing religious doctrine. In fact, many prominent Christian nationalists, such as Peter Theil, Elon Musk, Stephen Miller, and Donald Trump are atheists or agnostics. What unites them is the use of Christian identity and language to justify cultural dominance, political control, and the exclusion of others. It is not about faith, it is about who gets to belong, who holds power, and whose story gets to define the nation.

How is this political moment affecting sustainability work?

Put simply, some of the fundamental ideas within Christian Nationalism are at odds with the sustainability agenda.
Manifest Destiny is a foundational American belief that European Christians were divinely chosen to expand across the American continent and to dominate the land and displace Indigenous peoples. While widely acknowledged today as a troubling chapter in U.S. history, this ideology remains a guiding force for many American Christian nationalists.
For these groups, Manifest Destiny is not just historical, it’s theological. It underpins a worldview that frames unregulated capitalism and environmental exploitation as divine rights. This belief system fuels opposition to critical race theory, climate policy, industry regulation, and any movement that challenges racial or environmental injustice. When Trump referenced Manifest Destiny in his second inauguration speech, it was a clear signal to his Christian nationalist base.

‘The sin of empathy’ is a rising idea in the Christian Nationalist world. Elon Musk told Joe Rogan on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast that “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.” He called it an “empathy exploit,” suggesting that empathy has become a kind of cheat code used to guilt well-meaning people into making irrational or harmful decisions.

While we might think that equality and empathy are universal things that everyone can get behind, this is not the case. Books like The Sin of Empathy argue that progressives use emotional appeals to hijack Christian values and advance left-leaning agendas.

‘Culture wars’ was a term invented by Christian nationalists. Things like DEI and Net Zero are seen as cultural forces that must be fought and destroyed.

So how do we resist in this moment?

As Stephen said: “You can’t out-populist populists.” This is not about winning a battle of ideas. As someone in the chat eloquently said: Remember that our ‘fundamental objective is to fight alongside the people for the recovery of the people’s stolen humanity, not to “win people over” to [our] side’.

So avoid argument, and lean into action. Neurologically, arguments will entrench an existing position, not change someone’s position. So if you believe what you’re doing to be good, keep doing it and make it easy for people to join. Action leads to belief, but very rarely does belief lead to action.

Stephen recommended that we should learn from the past and other movements of resistance, like the Civil Rights movement. Fostering community, supporting those who are most impacted and – in the case of Martin Luther King – love, were all highly successful techniques for creating change in remarkably difficult social and political contexts.

Stephen also reminded us that this form of Christian Nationalism is not all-powerful. ‘Populism’ does not mean it’s popular. If we remember the 3.5% rule: social movements are more likely to succeed when they reach a threshold of participation equivalent to 3.5% of the population. 3.5% is a small number, not a majority and nor does it represent a consensus. Further, Stephen pointed out that many who grow up in a Christian nationalist culture do go on to abandon it. It’s therefore not a culture that perpetuates itself well. All of this is to remind us that we should not give up.

We will dig into all of this more in our next webinar: How to make sustainability sustainable in a Christian Nationalist backdrop.