By: Sheelah Kolhatkar

One of the risks of not providing an universal Health Care system is not just related to the threat  represented to life itself. Debt and despair can be easily taken advantage of and the article encloses how this dispossession process of hospital patients is all possible in the current financial system and kept legal by the same government.

By: Iago Otero, Katharine N. Farrell, Salvador Pueyo, Giorgos Kallis, Laura Kehoe, Helmut Haberl, Christoph Plutzar, Peter Hobson, Jaime García‐Márquez, Beatriz Rodríguez‐Labajos, Jean‐Louis Martin, Karl‐Heinz Erb, Stefan Schindler, Jonas Nielsen, Teuta Skorin, Josef Settele, Franz Essl, Erik Gómez‐Baggethun, Lluís Brotons, Wolfgang Rabitsch, François Schneider, Guy Pe'er

Increasing evidence—synthesized in this paper—shows that economic growth contributes to biodiversity loss via greater resource consumption and higher emissions. Nonetheless, a review of international biodiversity and sustainability policies shows that the majority advocate economic growth. Since improvements in resource use efficiency have so far not allowed for absolute global reductions i...

By: Max, Lukas

Nicht gescheitert, aber falsch erzählt. Was Degrowth vom Demokratischen Sozialismus von Corbyn und Co. lernen kann.

By: Max Koch, Andro Rilović, Julia Tschersich, Mira Pütz

Standard session (discussion following 4 presentations) Structure, Action and Change: A Bourdieusian Perspective on the Preconditions for a Degrowth transition - video A deprioritization of economic growth in policy making in the rich countries will need to be part of a global effort to re-embed economy and society into planetary boundaries. However, societal support for a degrowth transi...

By: Nina Treu, Brototi Roy, Matthias Schmelzer, Tadzio Müller, Julianna Fehlinger, Corinna Bukhart

Special session Degrowth as an emerging social movement overlaps with radical activism for systemic change such as anti-globalization and climate justice, commons and transition towns, basic income and Buen Vivir. The book “Degrowth in Movement(s). Exploring Pathways for Transformation” (Zer0 books, June 2020) reflects on the current situation of social movements and their relationship to de...

By: Nathan Barlow, Panos Petridis, Nilda Inkermann, Katya Chertkovskaya

Panel debate This panel aims to give an overview of different strategic approaches for degrowth. Panelists will discuss frameworks or typologies of strategic approaches to assist the discussions on strategy that place in the following days of the conference. Further, challenges and weaknesses of different strategic approaches, as well as inter-linkages between strategies will be discussed. ...

By: Mialy Andriamahefazafy, Megan Bailey, Hussain Sinan, Christian A. Kull

For many coastal nations in the Western Indian Ocean, and notably the islands of Madagascar, Mauritius, and Seychelles, the tuna fishery is considered one of the main pillars of economic development, providing jobs and substantial revenues while ensuring food security. However, the fishery is also an illustration of the paradox behind the idea of the blue economy, where economic growth and ...

By: Ulrich Schachtschneider, Frank Adler, Jana Flemming, Barbara Sennholz-Weinhard, Ellen Ehmke

Special session How could counter-hegemony become realistic, which is necessary for a democratic transition? Our thesis: We need a bundle of “non-reformist reforms” (Gorz) which tie on everyday social needs and problems (time pressure, fears of future or descent, deficient recognition etc.) and propose alternative ways of their satisfaction or solution. The chances and barriers of this strat...

By: Viviana Asara

Abstract: Under regimes of austerity, social movements´ transformative eco-politics may appear endangered. What kinds of environmentalism and radical imaginaries can unfold in social movements in crisis-ridden societies? I focus on the ‘movement of the squares’ during its post-encampment phase, with a case study of three urban projects of the Indignados movement in Barcelona. Observation of the...

By: Patrik Gažo

Presentation [part of the standard session "Co-operatives, work and degrowth"] I argue that degrowth strategies should be focused more on the industrial sectors and on those who work there. More concretely, the automotive industry is economically-speaking one of the most important sectors in Central Europe, with car workers having great potential to be a transformational force. Presenters...

By: Dani Rodrik

No one should expect the pandemic to alter – much less reverse – tendencies that were evident before the crisis. Neoliberalism will continue its slow death, populist autocrats will become even more authoritarian, and the left will continue to struggle to devise a program that appeals to a majority of voters.

By: Max Koch, Martin Fritz

The emerging concept of sustainable welfare attempts to integrate environmental sustainability and social welfare research. Oriented at a mid-term re-embedding of Western production and consumption norms into planetary limits, it suggests the development of “eco-social” policies in the rich countries. In this theoretical context, this article empirically investigates the relationships between a...

By: Women & Environment International magazine

Climate chaos and worsening income disparities (both local and global) make it more important than ever to forge respectful alliances between academics and front line community activists --the majority of whom are women. Information-sharing of many varieties, and mobilizing this knowledge for local grass-roots action as well as policy formation (and removing perverse policies!), should happen h...

By: Cle-Anne Gabriel

Cle-Anne Gabriel is a Lecturer at the University of Queensland, and the Business School’s Director for the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education. Her research focuses on the areas of sustainable development and postgrowth futures. During our conversation, Cle-Anne Gabriel questions the compatibility between environmental sustainability and economic growth. Is a de-pr...

By: Barry Gils, Jamie Morgan

This Special Editorial on the Climate Emergency makes the case that although we are living in the time of Global Climate Emergency we are not yet acting as if we are in an imminent crisis. The authors review key aspects of the institutional response and climate science over the past several decades and the role of the economic system in perpetuating inertia on reduction of greenhouse gas emissi...

By: Timothée Parrique

What is degrowth and what are its implications for political economy? Divided in three parts, this dissertation explains the why, what and how of degrowth.

By: Léa Sébastien, Jérôme Pelenc, Nicolas Merveille, Grégoire Wallenborn, Julien Milanesi, Julien Vastenaekels, Fany Lajarthe, Jérôme Ballet, Manuel Cervera-Marzal, Aurélie Carimentrand, Bruno Frère

This article addresses the issue of sustainability transformations in Ecological Economics through the lens of social movements, by linking environmental resistance movements and alternative movements. We advocate for a more politicized, social-movement oriented and place-based approach to sustainability transformations, and contribute to the development of a more political and emancipatory con...

By: Giorgos Kallis

"Self-limitation is not about constraining, but about defining collectively as societies our limits." This blogpost introduces the key ideas of Giorgos Kallis' new book Limits. Why Malthus was wrong and why environmentalists should care (Stanford University Press, 2019)

By: Max Koch

The limits of the environmental state in the context of the provision of economic growth are addressed by applying materialist state theory, state-rescaling approaches and the degrowth/postgrowth literature. I compare state roles in a capitalist growth economy and in a postgrowth economy geared towards bio-physical parameters such as matter and energy throughput and the provision of ‘sustainabl...

By: Pasi Heikkurinen, Pierre Tosi, Jana Lozanoska

Abstract: Hannah Arendt's three-fold conceptualization of human activity offers a useful base for understanding the necessity of degrowth and the kinds of activities required to achieve it. The article argues that the different roles of labour, work, and action should be acknowledged and scrutinized in detail to appreciate the underpinnings of contemporary over-production and over-consumption,...