Towards futures of resilient eco-social contracts

By Dr. Jaana Hyvärinen, Demos Helsinki.

Europe is entering an era in which the assumptions that shaped the old social contract no longer hold. For decades, the social contract in many European societies rested on a relatively stable promise: economic growth would support welfare, democratic institutions would manage conflicts, and nature would remain a background condition rather than a political actor in its own right.

That promise is now under pressure from every direction. 

Climate change is accelerating. Biodiversity is declining. Resource pressures are intensifying. Geopolitical confrontation, disinformation, democratic erosion, demographic ageing, technological disruption and rising inequality are reshaping the conditions under which societies hold together. These are not separate crises. They interact, reinforce one another and expose the fragility of a model built on ecological overuse, short-term politics and the expectation of endless growth. 

This is why it is no longer enough to talk about renewing the social contract in familiar terms. What we need instead is a resilient eco-social contract. 

A social contract is often understood as the implicit agreement that allows people to live together under shared rules, institutions and responsibilities. A resilient social contract goes further: it describes a society whose fundamental rules are broadly seen as just and legitimate, and are therefore capable of withstanding, adapting to and recovering from shocks over time. But in the 21st century, resilience cannot be understood only in social, economic or institutional terms. It must also be ecological. 

An eco-social contract recognises that nature is not an external backdrop to society. It is the living foundation on which all economies, welfare systems and political communities depend. Clean water, fertile soil, stable climates, functioning ecosystems and biodiversity are not optional extras. They are preconditions for security, health, livelihoods and democracy itself. When these foundations are destabilised, the social contract is destabilised with them. 

This shift matters because the ecological crisis is no longer a future risk. It is a present condition shaping politics, everyday life and long-term legitimacy. Extreme weather, environmental health burdens, supply-chain stress, energy transitions and conflicts over land, minerals and infrastructure are already changing what states can provide and what citizens can reasonably expect. A contract that ignores planetary boundaries is therefore not only unjust. It is unrealistic. 

At the same time, the ecological crisis cannot be separated from wider PESTEL uncertainties. Politically, democracy is under strain from polarisation, disinformation, geopolitical rivalry and the erosion of trust in institutions. Economically, growth-dependent welfare models are increasingly fragile in a world of resource constraints, public finance pressures and uneven transitions. Socially, inequalities are deepening across income, health, region and generation, weakening solidarity and perceptions of fairness.

Technologically, artificial intelligence and digital infrastructures are transforming work, knowledge and governance, while also concentrating power and creating new vulnerabilities.

Legally, societies are struggling to regulate fast-moving technologies, ecological disruption and emergency politics in ways that remain legitimate, inclusive and accountable. 

Seen together, these pressures suggest that resilience will not come from technical fixes alone. It will depend on whether societies are willing to renegotiate what counts as prosperity, protection and responsibility under radically changed conditions. 

That renegotiation must begin with the economy. The ecological crisis is not simply the result of bad environmental policy. It is rooted in an economic system that treats nature as an inexhaustible input, rewards extraction more than regeneration, and measures success too narrowly through growth. If social contracts remain tied to a model that depends on rising material throughput on a finite planet, they will become harder and harder to sustain.

A resilient eco-social contract must therefore ask different questions: what is the economy for, how should wellbeing be measured, and how can resources, risks and opportunities be distributed fairly within planetary boundaries? 

It must also take intergenerational justice seriously. Younger and future generations will live longest with the consequences of decisions made today, yet they continue to have the least influence over the systems shaping those outcomes. A credible eco-social contract must embed long-term responsibility into decision-making, not as a symbolic gesture but as a structural principle. That means investing in futures that remain liveable, fair and democratic beyond the next election cycle. 

Technology is another crucial test. Artificial intelligence is often presented as immaterial, inevitable and universally beneficial. In reality, it is deeply material and deeply political. It depends on minerals, energy, infrastructure and labour. It reflects choices about whose needs matter, whose values are coded into systems, and who controls the benefits. In a resilient eco-social contract, technology must be treated as a means to support collective wellbeing and ecological regeneration, not as an end in itself. 

Ultimately, moving from a traditional social contract to a resilient eco-social contract means accepting that legitimacy in the future will depend on more than institutional continuity. It will depend on whether societies can align democracy, welfare, economy and ecology in ways that people experience as fair, meaningful and worth defending. 

The question is no longer whether change is coming. It is whether we are willing to shape that change before ecological breakdown, democratic erosion and social fragmentation do it for us. 

A resilient eco-social contract is not a utopian add-on to politics as usual. It is the condition for preserving justice, solidarity and democracy in a world where the limits of nature have become impossible to ignore.