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Independent Research Platform. Established 2026

Redefining sustainability in a contested age.

Security is a precondition for sustainable growth.

Forward-looking analysis of the food, energy and water security nexus through a climate and resilience lens that links directly to sovereignty and defence. Research written for a global audience concerned with tipping points, physical risk, capital allocation and national security in a contested age.

Read the latest research → About the thesis
Resilience & Defence Intelligence
Forward-looking analysis at the intersection of physical risk and national security.
20+
Years buy-side and sell-side analysis
Top
Ranked sell-side research analyst
6
Converging threat domains
3
Structural themes called early
A track record of identifying structural themes before consensus, including biodiversity loss (2020), antimicrobial resistance (2021) and defence (2022).
Research themes

Three pillars. One framework.

Every piece of research published here addresses one or more of these converging domains, and the interdependencies between them.

01

Security and Resilience

Food, energy and water systems are strategic assets critical to national security and sovereignty. The convergence of physical risk, conflict, climate extremes and supply chain disruption poses a systemic risk affecting future economic security. Secure supply chains and food, energy and water security are key to long-term economic resilience.

Food Energy Water Critical Infra Mobility Strategic Enablers
02

Defence and Deterrence

Deterrence is an intentional set of actions aimed at influencing an adversary such that it chooses restraint over aggression. The defence paradox states that if you must use weapons, deterrence has failed. Nations need capability, credibility and communication. Peace and security are the bedrock for growth.

Dual-Use Drones AI Quantum Cyber Electronic Warfare
03

Climate Adaptation and Biodiversity Loss

Unmanaged physical risk from climate extremes will manifest as financially material. Climate stress degrades and disrupts transport infrastructure across road, rail, sea and air. Biodiversity loss and ecological degradation underpin global food and water systems. Adapting to a changing climate and building ecosystem resilience will be key to national security.

Climate Adaptation Energy Transition Biodiversity Loss Climate Security Supply Chains
Latest research

Evidence-driven. Forward-looking. Structurally early.

Flagship report. April 2026

Redefining Sustainability in a Contested Age.

Six converging threat domains and a new framework. The Hormuz closure, undersea cable vulnerability, the weaponisation of food and fertiliser supply chains, and the climate-military interface, integrated into a single analytical framework for a global audience.

Food Energy Water Climate Biodiversity Supply chain Defence
Read the report →
Critical infrastructure

UK undersea cables: the most important infrastructure nobody is protecting.

Available soon

Food security

Has the food system been weaponised? Food security and the Hormuz disruption.

Available soon

Climate as a threat multiplier

Heat, drought and ecosystem degradation: climate as a threat multiplier.

Available soon

The framework

Six converging threat domains. One nexus.

The 2026 framework integrates six distinct threat vectors, each with measurable financial materiality, connected through a central nexus.

Domain 01
Food and water security
Staples such as wheat, maize, rice and soybean, responsible for over 66% of human calorific intake, are impacted by a supply chain disruption. Water security transcends national borders and is exacerbated by a changing climate, heat, flood, drought. Today water security poses a risk to human security with the targeting of water desalination in water stressed regions.
$34bn
Global desalination market by 2032 (Coherent). Sources: IUCN, 2018; FAO, 2026; UN News, 2026.
Domain 02
Energy sovereignty
Hormuz carries approximately 25 per cent of seaborne oil and 20 per cent of LNG. Closure from 28 February 2026 triggered a systemic energy shock. Energy sovereignty is now the single most accelerated investment theme in the global economy.
$2.3tn
Global energy transition investment, 2025 (BloombergNEF)
Domain 03
Climate and biodiversity loss
Heat stress, drought, ecosystem degradation and accelerating ecological loss are converging as a single physical risk vector. Biodiversity underpins global food and water systems, yet the annual financing gap to halt and reverse loss by 2030 remains substantially unfunded.
$700bn
Annual biodiversity finance gap (Paulson Institute, WWF, WEF, UNEP, UK Gov)
Redefining sustainability in a contested age
Capital allocation nexus
Methodology
Financial materiality. Vulnerability. Abatement. Interoperability.
Domain 04
Supply chain integrity
Hormuz transits collapsed from 130 ships per day in February to 6 in March 2026, a 95 per cent collapse. Climate extremes and drought further disrupt global supply chains. A third of global seaborne fertiliser transits this single chokepoint, moving the impact from gas to grain.
+90%
Oil tanker freight rates, late February to March 2026 (UNCTAD)
Domain 05
Defence and deterrence
Global military spending reached an eleventh consecutive year of growth, accounting for 2.6 per cent of global GDP. European NATO spending rose 14 per cent, the largest jump since 1953. Germany crossed 2 per cent of GDP for the first time since 1990 with spending up 24 per cent to $114 billion.
$2.89tn
Global military expenditure, 2025 (SIPRI)
Domain 06
Digital sovereignty and cyber security
Cyber threats have evolved in complexity and scope with the growth of hybrid warfare, AI adoption, geopolitical fragility and widening capability gaps. Global cybercrime cost approximately US$10.5 trillion in 2025, making cybercrime one of the largest economic forces in the world today.
$10.5tn
Annual cost of global cybercrime, 2025 (CyberSecurityVentures, 2020)
Anita McBain
About

Twenty years of institutional research. One contrarian thesis.

Anita McBain is an award-winning, top-ranked sell-side analyst with over twenty years covering global risk, sustainability and strategic investment themes for the world's largest asset managers, sovereign wealth funds and pension funds.

Her track record is built on identifying structural themes ahead of consensus, most notably the contrarian European defence call made in early 2022, on evidence of Russia's military build-up and before political alignment had formed.

01.Pre-Ukraine European defence call, early 2022. Evidence-driven, before political consensus formed.
02.Award-winning research across antimicrobial resistance, water security, food systems and climate adaptation.
03.King's College London endowment sub-committee. Bulge-bracket institutional research background.