UNICRI launched its new report, Crime-Proofing the Future: Safeguarding Sustainability Transitions, at an event co-organized with the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) in Brussels. The discussion examined how organized crime, corruption and fraud can undermine sustainability transitions, and how policymakers, law enforcement authorities and development partners can better anticipate and prevent these risks.
The expansion of renewable energy, green infrastructure and new markets creates opportunities for economic and environmental progress. At the same time, it can also create opportunities for criminal actors to divert investment, evade regulations and manipulate decision-making. Such criminal practices can delay essential projects, damage livelihoods and erode public trust in the transitions themselves.
The report identifies four ways in which criminal actors can undermine sustainability transitions:
Sabotaging: deliberately obstructing, disrupting or damaging transition-related policies, projects and infrastructure.
Exploiting: generating illicit profits from the markets, investments, materials and demand created by the transitions.
Circumventing: evading environmental rules, standards and compliance costs.
Capturing: using corruption or other unlawful practices to manipulate decisions, public funds, land allocation, licensing and procurement.
This analytical framework highlights how familiar forms of criminal activity can take on new significance as economies undergo sustainability transitions. Examples highlighted in the report include attacks on renewable-energy installations, illegal extraction of materials used in clean technologies, unlawful waste disposal and corruption affecting green investments.
The event opened with remarks by Hanne Knaepen, Head of Climate Action and Green Transition at ECDPM, and Matthew Burnett-Stuart, Programme Management Officer at UNICRI. Moderated by Sophie Desmidt, Associate Director at ECDPM, the panel brought together Peter Schwartzstein; Colin Black, Executive Director of the Centre for Climate Crime Analysis; Barbara Verhoeve, a legal expert on crimes affecting the environment with the Belgian federal government; and Anna Matczak, Senior Lecturer in Comparative Criminology at The Hague University of Applied Sciences.
The discussion underscored the need to identify and address criminal risks at an early stage. Panellists highlighted limited data, fragmented expertise, barriers to information-sharing and insufficient specialist capacity as obstacles to effective prevention and enforcement. Environmental crime intelligence emerged as a priority: authorities need to identify emerging patterns of criminal exploitation before harm becomes entrenched.
Panellists outlined several practical responses. These included integrating crime and corruption risk assessments into policy and investment decisions; strengthening cooperation between environmental, financial and criminal justice authorities; and investing in specialist training, investigative capacity and incentives for officers to pursue these cases. Participants also highlighted the contribution of civil society, open-source intelligence and local knowledge to detecting risks and strengthening accountability.
International cooperation was another focus. The launch followed the recent decision at the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) in Vienna to establish an ad hoc committee to elaborate an additional protocol addressing specific crimes affecting the environment. Alongside implementation of the EU Environmental Crime Directive, this process offers an opportunity to strengthen ooperation across borders and align legal developments with operational needs.
Panellists emphasized that the consequences of criminal exploitation extend beyond Europe. Communities with the fewest resources to absorb environmental and economic harm can bear the greatest costs of criminal exploitation. Prevention therefore needs to reflect local circumstances and involve those affected by transition-related projects and policies.
In closing, UNICRI and ECDPM emphasized the importance of translating research into practical capacity-building. The report provides a basis for helping institutions to anticipate criminal risks, protect investments and strengthen cooperation to ensure that sustainability transitions deliver lasting benefits for communities.
Read the report: Crime-Proofing the Future: Safeguarding Sustainability Transitions
