Where: Nelijärve holiday center in Aegviidu, Estonia
When: October 2–3, 2025
The Beyond Growth Estonia conference is the first major degrowth event to be organized in Estonia, as part of the international series of Beyond Growth conferences. The event takes place at the Nelijärve holiday center in Aegviidu on October 2–3, 2025. The conference is organised by Degrowth Estonia NGO and Biotoopia, in collaboration with partners from TalTech and Tallinn University.
Beyond Growth Estonia brings together policymakers, economists, scientists, journalists, members of the civil society, practitioners and other interested parties who care about sustainability and the well-being of people and nature. The conference explores systemic solutions for our society to ensure good quality of life for as many people as possible during the inevitably upcoming post-growth era.
Our perpetual venture for economic growth has exceeded the boundaries of natural ecosystems as well as widened the gap of social inequality, which results in increasing polarisation in the society. Degrowth questions the capability of economic growth to ensure a good life for all citizens and calls for alternatives to improve and measure well-being. Our approach sets ecological sustainability, social justice, democracy, and well-being as central values in society.
The aim of the conference, mostly held in estonian, is to initiate public discussion about ways to improve Estonia’s adaptive capacity in a changing ecological and political reality. We also aim to raise awareness of alternative practices and policies that contribute to adaptation.
Previous global ‘efforts’ to tackle climate breakdown have failed dramatically, because they have been based on a fundamentally flawed economic paradigm: growth. The concept of growth is an altar at which economists, politicians and businesspeople across the political spectrum have worshipped for decades. Unfortunately, where the planet’s long-term habitability is concerned, it is this obsessi...
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Gemüsekooperative Rote Beete [Vegetable Cooperative „Rote Beete“] from Marc Menningmann on Vimeo. What has agriculture to do with the climate? A lot. Modern, industrialized agriculture is heavily dependent on fossil fuels. This video shows an excursion which took place in the context of the Degrowth Conference in Leipzig last year. Participants visited the vegetable cooperative "Rote Beete" o...
