On 23 May 2019, Klaus Jacob gave a lecture at the 17th Workshop of the European Sustainable Development Network on the position of rising populism on sustainability policy. Even if populist parties do not have a voting majority, they successfully influence the political agenda. There is a potential for sustainability and environmental policy to become a target of these parties and get denounced as an elite project. Therefore, it is advisable to examine the root causes of populism in order to find strategies and approaches to deal with populist critique.