Is resilience more important than growth?

RST: Resilience, Security, Transition – Europe’s New Energy Agenda

Resilience. Security. Transition. These three terms are becoming increasingly central when discussing the future of energy supply and industrial competitiveness. RST is more than just a new acronym. It signals a strategic turning point: businesses are not only expected to act sustainably, but to survive and thrive in an environment shaped by geopolitical uncertainty, volatile energy markets, and accelerated structural change. This applies to the private sector as well as to public institutions and critical infrastructure companies.

What’s New About RST?

RST isn’t just a rebranded ESG. While ESG is rooted in normative frameworks and focuses heavily on transparency and reporting obligations, RST shifts attention to the operational and strategic implications of geopolitical and systemic risks. It’s about robust supply chains, redundant infrastructures, diversified technologies, and investable transformation paths. The key difference: RST strategically integrates risk and supply management with future readiness.

ESG vs. RST – Two Complementary Perspectives

• ESG evaluates a company’s contribution to environmental, social, and governance goals – from the perspective of external stakeholders.

• RST evaluates a company’s resilience to external risks – from the perspective of long-term business viability.

Both concepts are complementary, but RST is more action-oriented and strategically grounded.

Europe: Political Shift Meets Business Reality

Europe faces a complex balancing act: ensuring supply security, achieving decarbonisation, and maintaining economic competitiveness – all at once. New policy tools like the Net Zero Industry Act, ETS2, or the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) are reshaping incentives – driving focus towards regional production, local infrastructure, and resilient systems.

The message for companies is clear: relying on external supplies or short-term efficiency alone may lead to structural disadvantages.

Making RST Measurable: Key Evaluation Criteria

Victanis uses the following core criteria to assess how RST-compliant a company or site is:

• Supply Security: How stable is access to energy and raw materials?

• Site Resilience: How exposed is the location to price shocks, grid instability, or supply disruptions?

• Diversification: How broad is the energy and supply portfolio?

• Transformation Capability: Are there viable paths to CO₂ reduction without endangering supply?

• Infrastructure Maturity: Is the grid connection, storage capacity, and logistics infrastructure ready?

• Policy Alignment: How do regulatory scenarios and funding schemes affect operations?

Why Businesses Should Embrace RST

Companies today face rising geopolitical, regulatory, and market-driven uncertainties. RST offers a strategic framework to proactively respond to these challenges while unlocking economic opportunities.

1. Safeguard Competitiveness: Volatile energy prices, outages, or carbon costs hit unprepared firms twice as hard.
2. Make Smarter Location Decisions: RST offers structure for investing in plants, logistics, data centres, or production capacity.
3. Win Investors and Customers: RST compatibility signals future-readiness, professionalism, and innovation.
4. Tap into Funding Opportunities: RST-oriented projects align well with new European and national industrial programs

Typical RST Project Flow 

Victanis guides companies through the entire RST process – from the initial risk assessment to concrete action implementation across the energy value chain.

1. Initial Analysis: Current state assessment based on RST criteria
2. Scoring & Benchmarking: Comparison with competitors and best practices
3. Scenario Development: Evaluate future-proof energy, location, and investment strategies
4. Action Plan: Strategic and operational recommendations for risk mitigation
5. Implementation & Monitoring: Support for project development, partner selection, funding applications, and execution

Conclusion

In a world where ESG is becoming a compliance baseline, RST is a strategic imperative. This isn’t about image – it’s about substance: companies that don’t align their energy, infrastructure, and site strategies with RST risk being left behind.

RST provides a robust action framework – and Victanis helps make it real: analytical, strategic, and implementation-driven.