UNIX, get environment variable

Question

I have a ridiculous question due to a ridiculous problem.

Normally if I want to get the contents of an environment variable in UNIX shell, I can do

Answer 1

The solution really depends on what the restrictions are why you can't use a simple $VAR. Maybe you could call a shell that doesn't have the restrictions and let this sub-shell evaluate the variable:

bash -c 'echo $VAR'