Richard Nugee
Climate is no longer a sustainability function. It is a security, supply chain and capital allocation problem that boards now have to answer for. Most leadership teams still treat it as compliance reporting rather than as a live risk to operations, alliances and the resources their business depends on.
Richard Nugee is the former Chief of Defence People and author of the UK Ministry of Defence’s first Climate Change and Sustainability Strategic Approach, helping leaders treat climate as a security and operating risk rather than a reporting exercise.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Richard Nugee
- He wrote the climate strategy that a national defence ministry now operates against. That is a different order of evidence from advocacy work; he has done the institutional translation himself.
- He links climate to the things boards actually argue about: supply chain exposure, energy security, geopolitical instability, capital allocation under long horizons.
- He carries the credibility of a Lieutenant General with operational service in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans, which lands with audiences that tune out conventional sustainability messaging.
- He still sits inside the policy machinery. As Co-Chair of the advisory board of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Climate, Nature and Security, and an advisor to the International Military Council on Climate and Security and the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, his framing reflects current government and alliance thinking.
Biography highlights
- Lieutenant General (Retd), British Army, 36-year career in the Royal Artillery; CB, CVO, CBE; US Legion of Merit (2014)
- Chief of Defence People, Ministry of Defence, 2016 to 2020
- Author, Ministry of Defence Climate Change and Sustainability Strategic Approach (March 2021); delivered a 2025 National Emergency Briefing to UK parliamentarians on climate and nature as a national security threat
- Co-Chair, Advisory Board, All-Party Parliamentary Group for Climate, Nature and Security; former Non-Executive Director for Climate Change and Sustainability, Ministry of Defence
- Senior advisor, International Military Council on Climate and Security; advisor to the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and the University of Oxford Climate Change & (In)Security Project
- Chief Executive, The Scar Free Foundation; Chair, Royal NAAFI Board
- Recent podcast guest on climate, food, and security, including Bloomberg’s Zero, Cleaning Up, Real Zero, and Farm Gate Leaders
Biography
The Ministry of Defence published its first formal climate strategy in March 2021. The author was a serving Lieutenant General who had spent the previous year inside the department turning climate from an environmental concern into a defence planning question. That strategy now shapes how UK Defence approaches emissions, estate, capability and resilience over a thirty-year horizon.
Richard Nugee’s military career ran for thirty-six years in the Royal Artillery, with operational tours in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Cyprus and Afghanistan. As Chief of Defence People from 2016 to 2020 he was responsible for personnel policy across the armed forces, the civil service side of Defence, and the veteran community. His honours include the CB, CVO and CBE, and the US Legion of Merit for service in Afghanistan.
The climate review changed his second career. He held the Non-Executive Director seat for Climate Change and Sustainability at the Ministry of Defence from 2021. He now co-chairs the advisory board of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Climate, Nature and Security. He advises the International Military Council on Climate and Security, the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and the University of Oxford Climate Change & (In)Security Project, and is Chief Executive of The Scar Free Foundation and Chair of the Royal NAAFI Board.
What he offers commercial audiences is the discipline of a defence planner applied to climate. He talks about resource competition, supply chain fragility, infrastructure exposure and the cost of inaction in language that boards used to hearing risk papers, not green narratives. The argument lands because it comes from someone who has had to make it stick inside a department that does not tolerate vague claims.
Key speaking topics
- Climate change as a national security risk
- Defence and sustainability strategy
- Geopolitical implications of climate
- Supply chain and resource resilience
- Net zero and capital allocation
- Leadership in large, change-resistant institutions
- Veterans, personnel and people strategy
Ideal for
- Boards and executive teams setting climate, ESG and net zero strategy with real capital at stake
- CSOs, sustainability leads and risk officers wanting to reframe climate as security and operating risk
- Defence, aerospace, energy and critical infrastructure organisations with exposure to geopolitical and resource volatility
- Leadership audiences in large, regulated or change-resistant institutions
Audience outcomes
- A working definition of climate as a security and supply chain risk, not a compliance or PR issue
- Specific examples of how a national defence ministry has translated climate into planning, capability and capital decisions
- A sharper view of the geopolitical second-order effects of climate, from resource competition to migration to alliance pressure
- Language for talking about climate to audiences that are sceptical of standard sustainability framing