A lot of people I know have stopped reading the news. It’s pretty dark out there. Heightened geopolitical tensions, to put it lightly. Full-out war, destruction, and it seems like dictators are back in fashion. Not to mention climate change accelerating and biodiversity quietly collapsing. What happened? Why can’t we just get along? Where’s the sand I can bury my head in until this is all over?

I’m not going to answer those questions here, but I have been thinking a lot about resilience, sustainability and how people move around.

Resilience and how we move

I’ve watched enough disaster movies to know that when the apocalypse comes, a good pair of walking shoes is your most important asset.

Joking aside, fossil fuels are linked to global oil markets, which are incredibly sensitive to political instability. When supply chains falter or conflicts escalate - especially in oil-producing regions - fuel prices go up. And when fuel prices go up, so does the cost of, well… everything. But especially transport.

If your organisation depends on car commuting, or if your fleet still runs on diesel or petrol, you’re carrying that risk. It’s not just an environmental issue. It’s a business continuity issue: rising costs, stressed employees, reduced flexibility. What happens to your car-dependent commuters if fuel costs rise by 10%?

Electrification? Yes, absolutely. But it’s not a silver bullet. If we simply replace fossil-fuelled cars with electric ones without changing the structure around how we move, we’re still building a system that’s fragile. Like your financial portfolio, resilience in transport depends on diversification.

Which brings me to my main point: we have and continue to build fossil car dependence into the DNA of our cities, commutes, and companies. That’s a vulnerability. On the other hand, walking and cycling - often dismissed as “soft” modes - are actually the backbone of a resilient transport system.

Preparing for a diverse mobility portfolio

So what happens if fossil fuel prices spike, or if fuel needs to be rationed for critical infrastructure only? That’s not just a problem for individuals, but for businesses too.

Maybe some of your transport is critical. From a resilience perspective, what matters most is understanding where your vulnerabilities lie - and putting the right infrastructure in place to reduce them. Yes, that requires data. Yes, that means planning. But the good news is, there are plenty of co-benefits to diversifying your mobility portfolio:

• Cost savings for employees

• Healthier, more productive employees

• Lower long-term costs for the business

• Better recruitment potential and retention

• Real progress on sustainability goals

Cost savings for employees?

Sure, cycling is cheap. So is walking, e-bikes, and in many places, public transport. But they’re only realistic if we design our systems around them.

You can’t expect people to show up to work by bike if they’re forced to park it next to the bins with no roof or arrive sweaty with no shower or changing room. You can’t push for electric cars if people want to charge at work and your office only has two chargers and both are taken by the same two guys every day.

These options need structure, support, and leadership. Workplaces that get this right aren’t just “doing good”—they’re future-proofing their operations. They’re reducing their exposure to volatility, supporting employees with choice and enabling them to use more cost-effective, resilient options.

Don’t just react— be prepared!

Every household in Sweden received a brochure on “what to do in case of crisis or war” last year. As a dutiful Swede, I bought a solar-powered radio so I’ll be able to pick up the emergency broadcasts. And yes—I stocked up on canned food and water too.

But the most important thing to being prepared to be able to live as normally as possible. Go to school, go to work, keep going. I feel almost like I am writing a propaganda text from the 1940s, the echos of history ring strongly in our ears right now.

And being prepared comes back to my favourite topic of conversation, transport data. In a workplace setting, I don’t see how you can meaningfully work with providing mobility options without understanding how people travel and designing solutions that fit for each workplace’s unique circumstances.

Ok so you will never have perfect data, but it surely makes sense to reduce the guesswork to a minimum in order to to build more resilience? Both on a strategic and tactical level, there needs to be an understanding on how employees travel, what their alternatives are, where the friction points can be as well as what changes could make a difference.

Not the blog post I had ever really hoped to write, but food for thought.

Maybe it is time to seriously work towards more sustainable and resilient commuting?