Authored by Tanner Tuttle, MSc. (One Planet Port). 

Summary

The irony is stark: the Netherlands is hailed as a global agricultural and trade powerhouse, yet its model erodes its own ecological integrity and entrenches extractive, profit-driven dynamics that harm farmers and food sovereignty worldwide. Polycrises of sea-level rise, water stress, nitrogen and biodiversity breakdown, grid and housing strain, and health harms demand a shift to sufficiency: govern material flows, phase out fossil fuels and PFAS, and prioritize well-being within planetary boundaries.

1. Introduction: Why the Netherlands Matters Now

The Netherlands, a small but hyper-globalized nation, is more than a key node in global trade; it is a harbinger of systemic collapse or transformation. With the Port of Rotterdam as Europe’s largest port¹ and one of the world’s largest oil and chemical hubs, a globally connected airport (Schiphol), and the status of second-largest agricultural exporter in 2022 by value globally², the country has achieved outsized economic influence relative to its size. However, this model is cracking under its own weight³.

Historically enriched through colonial extraction and trade, the Netherlands has long relied on extracting flows of goods, people, energy, and capital⁴, often without accounting for their environmental or social costs^5,6. For several decades, the Netherlands has faced a series of interlocking crises: ecological overshoot⁷, e.g., emitting more pollution than the Dutch land can absorb or regenerate⁸, and resource conflicts⁹. This translates to tensions between farmers and the government over nitrogen emissions policy, and infrastructure congestion (e.g., Dutch electricity grid is overloaded¹⁰), which has fueled intensifying political polarization¹¹. In this context, the Netherlands is a canary in the coal mine: its vulnerabilities are warnings for the world. With one of the world’s highest material footprints and net imports of resources, the Netherlands illustrates the structural limits of an extractivist global economy. Its pressures are not an isolated national failure but a warning of the risks inherent in the system itself.

2. From Historical Extractor to Systemic Risk

The Netherlands’ economic model is the product of centuries of extractive trade¹². From the seventeenth-century founding of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), which dominated global spice routes^13,14, to today’s fossil-fuel¹⁵ and agri-logistics hubs, the Dutch economy has prospered by externalizing ecological and human costs to other regions⁵. It has built its wealth by importing raw materials, whether colonial goods, fossil fuels, or agricultural feedstocks, and exporting finished products, chemicals, refined fuels, and food⁶.

A striking example: in 2017 the Netherlands was the second-largest exporter of agricultural products in the world (by value), behind only the United States¹⁶, despite occupying only about 0.4% of the land area of the continental United States. This feat relies on massive inputs of imported fertilizers^17–25, animal feed²⁶, and fossil fuels^17,27–32. Dutch agriculture is hyper-intensive and technologically advanced, with yields that are among the highest in the world, for example, greenhouse tomato yields can exceed 500 tonnes per hectare annually³³, more than ten times the global average³⁴. Yet such productivity is only possible through an energy- and input-addicted system that is heavily industrialized and ecologically costly, driving soil degradation, water pollution, and biodiversity loss^35,36. 

In short, the Netherlands exports food but imports the energy¹⁵ and raw material³⁷ burdens that make those exports possible. This system depends on unequal exchanges: soy for livestock feed linked to deforestation in South America^38–41 and fertilizers drawn from geopolitically fragile supply chains^42,43. Dutch agriculture relies on natural-gas-based nitrogen fertilizers⁴⁴ increasingly tied to imported LNG from U.S. fracking⁴⁵, making it vulnerable to energy price, and geopolitical, shocks^46,47 and environmental injustices borne by frontline communities abroad^48,49. Potash from Russia and Belarus⁵⁰ and phosphate from Morocco and Western Sahara^51,52 further expose the sector to geopolitical risks and unresolved questions of sovereignty and consent. These dependencies reveal a paradox: practices deemed too harmful within the EU, such as fracking, are outsourced abroad⁴⁵, reproducing colonial continuities in global resource flows⁵³.

Now, this model itself is threatening its own people and its own ecosystem. Much of the country lies below sea level and is at severe risk from sea level rise. Approximately 26% of the Netherlands’ territory is below mean sea level, and about 60% is vulnerable to floods from the North Sea, rivers, or lakes⁵⁴ as sea level rise intensifies due to climate change. Crucially, the regions most at risk for floods are also the country’s centers of economic activity, including the Randstad (Amsterdam–Rotterdam–The Hague–Utrecht), Rotterdam port, and Schiphol airport^55–62. 

At the same time, the Netherlands faces growing drought and drinking-water stress: the RIVM has warned that by 2030 the country as a whole could face water shortages^63,64 if no urgent action is taken, even as vast amounts of freshwater continue to be consumed by intensive livestock and agricultural production⁶⁵. According to the European Environment Agency’s climate risk assessment, these converging pressures, flooding, drought, and heat stress, are set to intensify across Europe, with the Netherlands standing out as a high-exposure case⁶⁶.

To arrest further sea-level rise, and to reduce the converging pressures of drought and heat stress, the underlying driver, global warming, must be stopped. Analyses indicate that stabilizing the climate would require the removal or neutralization of on the order of 10–20 gigatonnes of CO₂ per year this century^67,68. Such numbers illustrate the sheer scale of the problem: no plausible portfolio of technological carbon removal can achieve this alone. The only realistic pathway is to drastically reduce the activities generating CO₂e in the first place, giving ecosystems space to absorb carbon naturally. Yet the Netherlands continues to operate as a high-emission (direct and indirect) trade and logistics hub via the materials flows^69,70 that it facilitates, intensifying the very climate risks to which it is most exposed.

3. Crisis Convergence: Vulnerabilities in the Dutch System

The Netherlands is facing a polycrisis, a convergence of economic, ecological, and social pressure points that reveal the fragility of its model:

• General well-being: Alongside material pressures, the polycrisis erodes social cohesion. Rising rates of mental health problems, loneliness, and social isolation reflect the atomisation of society, which climate disruption and economic insecurity are likely to worsen further.
• Sea level rise: With much of its land below sea level, the country is directly at risk from climate change driven sea level rise, even as it maintains dependence on fossil-fueled trade.
• Housing crisis: Skyrocketing prices and shortages reflect space scarcity, speculative investment, and the financialization of housing. These dynamics deepen social fragmentation: while some households are forced into shared or subdivided dwellings, others consolidate properties or expand in high-value urban cores, reinforcing unequal access to living space⁷¹.
• Energy and grid crisis: Renewable energy production is growing, particularly solar and wind, but the national electricity grid lacks sufficient capacity to transport and store this energy reliably. As a result, businesses and solar producers face delays in connection or forced curtailments, resulting in inefficient use of resources and loss of revenue. Meanwhile, fossil fuel infrastructure⁷² still dominates large portions of the energy mix, slowing the shift toward cleaner systems⁷³.
• Public health & environmental health degradation: Schiphol airport, the Rotterdam port, industrial agriculture, and chemical production facilities such as Chemours are major sources of air⁷⁴, noise⁷⁵, soil, and water pollution³⁵, affecting the health of local communities. For example, breathing the air in Rotterdam has been compared to passively smoking almost seven cigarettes per day⁷⁶. Affecting air, water, and soil, the PFAS contamination crisis illustrates the toxic health risks facing Dutch communities: RIVM has warned that eggs from free-range hobby farmers near Dordrecht contain PFAS concentrations so high they are unsafe for human consumption⁷⁷, with long-term exposure linked to cancer, immune suppression, and developmental harm. Meanwhile, the healthcare system is under growing strain: significant staff shortages are projected in the coming decade^78–81 with evidence of rapidly rising healthcare costs^82,83.
• Public vs. corporate (and geopolitical) power: Citizens call for reduced flights⁸⁴, fewer cruise ships⁸⁵, and an end to fossil subsidies⁸⁶. Yet corporate lobbies and foreign governments exert outsized influence to protect entrenched interests, most strikingly when the Dutch government attempted to reduce flight numbers at Schiphol, only for the plan to be blocked under pressure from the United States⁸⁷ and the EU^87,88.
• Ecological breakdown: Soil depletion, nitrogen pollution⁸⁹, biodiversity collapse⁹⁰, and water contamination reflect an economy that has prioritized throughput over sufficiency.
• Demographic strain: The Netherlands is experiencing a complex demographic situation involving natural population decline while maintaining overall population growth through labor immigration⁹¹, e.g., to funnel workers to sectors such as agriculture and the meat industry, even in the face of covid and the Russia-Ukraine war.
• Institutional and political crisis: The Netherlands’ political landscape over the past decades has been marked by an institutional inability to respond coherently to converging crises. The past three cabinets have all collapsed prematurely, reflecting a governmental crisis that has deepened public mistrust in institutions. In this vacuum, populist narratives have surged, with refugees and immigrants frequently scapegoated for housing shortages and pressure on social services. Racist sentiments are rising, despite evidence that 1 in 10 people in the Netherlands reported feeling discriminated against in 2023⁹², and critical scholarship highlights how Dutch society has often struggled to confront structural racism⁹³.

While many Western economies externalize ecological costs in similar ways, the Dutch economic model is distinctive in its intensity and exposure. The Netherlands’ extreme spatial density, global trade centrality, and legal constraints arising from excess nitrogen pollution⁹⁴ make the costs of extractivism unusually visible and acute. 

This economic model imposes enormous costs on Dutch society. Individual health expenditures already amount to 10.2% of GDP⁹⁵, while environmental damage accounts for another 5.8%⁹⁶, and fossil fuel subsidies remain high at an estimated 7%⁹⁷ of GDP. Excess nitrogen pollution has triggered legal restrictions that stall new housing and industrial development, generating real-estate value losses and delaying urgently needed investment^94,98–101. Flood risks are beginning to affect property prices, Dutch homes in flood-prone areas sell on average for 2.2-4.7% less than comparable properties^102,103, echoing international projections of climate-driven value declines of 10–40% in places like California and Florida¹⁰⁴. Additional burdens stem from publicly funded infrastructure repairs and society-financed tax and regulatory breaks for ecologically harmful sectors, including shipping subsidies (0.7% of GDP^105,106), aviation tax exemptions (0.25% of GDP¹⁰⁷). 

On conservative assumptions, these costs amount to a significant portion of GDP being tied up, much of it sustaining activities with short-lived benefits and persistent ecological harms. Beyond these measurable costs, further environmental harm erodes the country’s ecological and economic resilience (e.g., polluting of soils, air, and water), while delaying investment in regenerative and equitable alternatives.

These overlapping crises are symptoms of a deeper truth: the Dutch economic model has reached its limits. Yet in this convergence lies an opportunity. By acknowledging the interconnected nature of its vulnerabilities, the Netherlands can also recognize the potential for systemic renewal. The breakdown of the old model opens space for a new one, an economy designed to deliver sufficiency, resilience, and shared prosperity within planetary boundaries, i.e., ecological limits.

4. A One Planet Perspective: Why It Starts Here

As the Dutch economic model is so resource-intensive and externally dependent, it cannot endure within planetary limits. Yet this very intensity makes the Netherlands the ideal testbed for transformation: if a highly globalized, trade-driven nation can shift toward sufficiency, others can follow.

A “One Planet” system, including economy, recognizes ecological boundaries while securing well-being. It reframes prosperity around sufficiency rather than surplus, drawing on frameworks such as the Nine Planetary Boundaries, Doughnut Economics, One Health One Planet, and the Safe and Just Earth System Boundaries. Practical guidance is already emerging, for example through the Seas At Risk One Planet Shipping report¹⁰⁸, which shows how global trade can be reoriented toward sustainability.

Image credit: Global Health Matters

The Dutch legacy makes the case plain. The VOC pioneered shareholder capitalism and financialized trade; today that same model destabilizes ecology and society. If the Netherlands helped design extractivist capitalism, it can also pioneer its reinvention^109–112, shifting from shareholder profit to shared well-being, from GDP growth to indicators of resilience, justice, and ecological integrity.

With cutting-edge research institutions, organized civil society, and high spatial awareness, the Netherlands has the tools, the knowledge, and the human capacity to lead this change. What is required is political will. By choosing sufficiency and regeneration over an extractive dead end, the Netherlands can become a luminous example of systemic renewal, proving that a thriving future within planetary limits is both possible and achievable.

5. Conclusion: Collapse or Co-Creation

The Netherlands is no longer merely a case study in modern trade efficiency, it is a litmus test for human and planetary well-being. It has reached the limits of a system premised on infinite growth, planetary disregard, and extractive flows. A deeper synthesis of its challenges, to build a definitive stepwise transition plan, is not only useful, it is essential for its survival.

The stakes are global. But the transformations are local. A One Planet Netherlands would mean establishing a national observatory for material flows, tracking in vivid detail imports, exports, and embodied emissions so society can govern what passes through Rotterdam and beyond. It would mean clear phase-out commitments: a timetable to end fossil fuels, halt fossil hydrogen projects, and eliminate PFAS in industrial production. And it would mean targeted innovation, such as a clean industrial cluster to replace toxic products like HFCs with sustainable alternatives, made commercially viable and regionally scalable. These are not distant ideals: pilots are already underway in Rotterdam, Dutch cities are experimenting with circular economy zones, and citizen cooperatives are generating clean energy for their neighborhoods.

Whether the coming transformation is chaotic and imposed, or intentional and co-created, depends on what happens now. The upcoming Dutch elections represent a pivotal opportunity to chart a new course, one rooted in ecological responsibility, shared prosperity, and democratic renewal. Will the Netherlands choose to lead a guided transition, setting an example of post-extractive, One Planet living, or will it be overtaken by the collapse of the very systems it helped to build?

At the One Planet Port foundation, we are building communities of courage, collaboration, and care, starting from our base in Rotterdam, the epicenter of both risk and possibility. Join us in advancing a vision, and stepwise plan, where prosperity comes from sufficiency and regeneration rather than extraction: ports that enable clean trade, farms that nourish ecosystems, clean energy that strengthens communities, and mobility systems that connect people without polluting the future. This is our moment to choose life over extraction, solidarity over fragmentation, and to proudly stand with Team Human¹¹³, amplifying human connection, resisting dehumanizing pressures of technologies, markets, and institutions, and reclaiming cooperative, human-centered ways of organizing.

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