By: Heinrich Böll Foundation, ZOE – Institute for Future-Fit Economies, Finanzwende Recherche

By: Sabine O'Hara, Etienne C. Toussaint

Disparities in food access and the resulting inequities in food security are persistent problems in cities across the United States. The nation's capital is no exception. The District of Columbia's 's geography of food insecurity reveals a history of uneven food access that has only been amplified by the vulnerability of food supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper examines the h...

By: Christian Arnsperger, Jem Bendell, Matthew Slater

Background: The existence of a Monetary Growth Imperative (MGI) and its implications for economic stability, democracy and environmental sustainability have been put forward by environmental economists for around two decades but recently criticised as invalid. Given the urgency of the climate and ecological crisis alongside spiralling public and private debt, the MGI deserves closer attention. ...

By: Ulrich Brand, Markus Wissen

With the concept of the Imperial Mode of Living, Brand and Wissen highlight the fact that capitalism implies uneven development as well as a constant and accelerating universalisation of a Western mode of production and living. The logic of liberal markets since the 19thCentury, and especially since World War II, has been inscribed into everyday practices that are usually unconsciously reproduc...

By: Marie-Jo Ouimet, Pier-Luc Turcotte, Louis-Charles Rainville, Yves-Marie Abraham, David Kaiser, Icoquih Badillo-Amberg

The climate crisis represents the biggest public health threat of our time. It interacts with the rising inequalities, chronic diseases and mental illness widely associated with our dominant economic system. Though degrowth and public health approaches differ, both share common values. The former proposes a new paradigm intended to halt the destruction of life-supporting systems by infinite eco...

By: Lucy Ford, Gabriela Kuetting

The Global Environmental Politics literature tends to focus on institutional and governance frameworks as the solution to global environmental problems rather than on the systemic constraints that limit the potential effectiveness of governance efforts. Part of the problem with institutional frameworks to reform global environmental governance is insufficient attention paid to deeper structural...

By: Katharina Zimmermann, Paolo Graziano

Attention towards topics such as environmental pollution, climate change, or biodiversity has strongly increased in the last years. The struggles to balance market powers and ecological sustainability somehow evoke memories of the early days of European welfare states, when social protection emerged as a means to prevent industrial capitalism from disruptive social tensions due to excessive soc...

By: Tuuli Hirvilammi

Welfare states are highly dependent on the economic growth paradigm. Especially in social democratic welfare states, growth dependence has historically been accompanied by the notion of a virtuous circle, which ensures that social policy measures do not conflict with economic growth. However, this policy idea ignores the environmental impacts that are now challenging human wellbeing and welfare...

By: Adeline Otto, Dimitri Gugushvili

In the face of accelerating global warming and attendant natural disasters, it is clear that governments all over the world eventually have to take measures to mitigate the most adverse consequences of climate change. However, the costs of these measures are likely to force governments to reconsider some of their tax and spending priorities, of which social spending is the largest expenditure i...

By: Mira Pütz

Presentation [part of the standard session "Theories of Transformation"] In order to develop and implement socio-ecological (economic) policies the processes and structural conditions of representation in democracies today need to be rethought, re-imagined and changed. Citizens’ assemblies can help us to do just that, starting now. Presenters: Mira Pütz (Sciences Po) Language: English ...

By: Riccardo Mastini

Presentation [part of the standard session "Institutional Change 2"] The Green New Deal offers a powerful vision for how to deploy industrial policies to coordinate the overhaul of a country’s energy system and decarbonize its manufacturing and agricultural sectors. However given the elusiveness of absolute decoupling degrowth policies must accompany this transition. Presenters: Riccardo ...

By: Andro Rilović

Presentation [part of the standard session "Theories of Transformation"] This paper will demonstrate why, when envisaging degrowth transitions and strategies for achieving them, it is essential to seriously engage with arguments concerning the limitations of the State in enacting radical systemic change, emanating from the long and fruitful history of anarchist thought. Presenters: Andro ...

By: Jeffrey Althouse, Guilio Guarini, Jose Gabriel Porcile

This article introduces a novel (environmental) interpretation of a “Keynesian coordination game” and develops four potential scenarios to remaining within a global carbon emissions constraint. With inspiration from research on “ecologically unequal exchange” (EUE), we demonstrate the drawbacks of present “green growth” strategies by considering how pollution- and resource-intensive industrie...

By: Max Koch

Presentation [part of the standard session "Theories of Transformation"] 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 transition remains for the time being moderate, and it is not well understood as yet why this is the cas...

By: Nina Treu, Matthias Schmelzer, Corinna Bukhart

A dictionary of social movements and alternatives for a future beyond economic growth, capitalism, and domination. Degrowth is an emerging social movement that overlaps with proposals for systemic change such as anti-globalization and climate justice, commons and transition towns, basic income and Buen Vivir. Degrowth in Movement(s) reflects on the current situation of social movements aimin...

By: Jamil Khan, Roger Hildingsson, Lisa Garting

In this paper, we study the integration of ecological sustainability and social welfare concerns in cities. Efforts to handle ecological challenges risk having negative impacts on equality and social welfare. While current levels of consumption and material welfare are unsustainable, there is a need for more sustainable approaches to welfare and wellbeing. Still, ecological and social concerns ...