Logo degrowth

Blog

Re-taking Sustainable Development for Degrowth

By: André Reichel

22.03.2016

From the text: In the discourse on degrowth – the deliberate and planned downscaling of production and consumption that increases human well-being and enhances ecological conditions and equity on the planet – the notion of »sustainable development« has sort of a bad rap. In fact, sustainable degrowth is intended to replace sustainable development as the central concept under which ecological and social minded activists and researchers might rally. Serge Latouche, the one who first fired the »missile word« of décroissance into the pubic realm, once held a talk titled »Down with sustainable development! Long live convivial degrowth!« at a conference in Paris in 2002. What are the reasons for such disregard of sustainable development? And could this be a somewhat foolish mistake?

About the author

André Reichel

More from this author

Share on the corporate technosphere


Our republication policy

Support us

Blog

Organizing the 2020 Vienna degrowth conference before and during the covid-19 crisis

Jacek dylag iiqxlbttqcw unsplash scaled

By: Nathan Barlow

No one really told us what organizing a degrowth conference would entail. We simply knew we wanted to do it. Two years of organizing, meeting, discussing and struggling have passed and now we’re less than seven weeks away from the first day of the conference. The initial motivation we all had in the summer of 2018 has not gone, but it has faltered at times. There have been days when I wo...

Blog

Maximum limits on income and wealth? A degrowth perspective

6052496679 1d2b96f760 o

By: Hubert Buch-Hansen, Max Koch

Against the background of a looming ecological collapse and extreme socio-economic inequality, growth-critical scholars and activists debate various eco-social policies that can facilitate transitions towards genuinely environmentally sustainable and socially equitable societies. Such policies include work sharing, time-banks, job guarantees, complementary currencies and minimum income schemes....

Blog

More than 600 contributions from all over the world!

On 14 March the last submission period closed for contributions to the conference. After a first quick review it was already clear that all expectations were far exceeded: more than 350 scientific papers were received from a broad range of disciplines such as economics, psychology, geography and urban planning. Further 260 proposals for practice-based activities were submitted by various civil-...