thesustainabilityagenda.com: In this interview, Professor Giorgos Kallis, a leading degrowth thinker, provides an overview of evolving theories of degrowth. Degrowth theorists argue for a reduction in production and consumption, arguing that overconsumption is at the root of many of the long term environmental issues and social inequalities facing the world today. Professor Kallis highlights the importance not just of reducing consumption, but also of different ways of consuming, like the sharing economy, and also connecting consumption with production. Looking to the future, he explores the likely impact of increasing pace of automation on the economy.

Professor Kallis is a Leverhulme visiting professor at SOAS and an ICREA professor at ICTA, Autonomous University of Barcelona. He is a leading thinker in the emerging field of degrowth, based on ecological economics, aims to achieve a steady state of growth that allows the economy to operate within the Earth’s biophysical limits. Giorgos is the co-editor of Degrowth: a vocabulary for a new era.