Alternate Logics, Degrowth, Sustainability

Abstract: We critique the growth imperative that is inherent in capitalism and draw attention to its detrimental ecological consequences. At the firm level, growth has become an unquestioned goal, causing excessive consumption and production patterns that are essentially unsustainable. This conceptual paper provides an alternate logic to the issue of managing and fostering sustainability in business. We introduce degrowth as an important perspective that takes into account both internal value chain functions and external factors affecting the viability of sustainable business decisions. Sustainable degrowth delinks development from growth and recognizes the limits of net resource availability and the ethics of their usage. The benefits of introducing degrowth to achieve sustainable management decisions are: the grounding in a holistic eco-centric paradigm, the import of non-economic development, cross national equity and parity in development, emphasis on reduced and balanced consumption, ethics, and lesser production of material goods coupled with an increase in relational goods and human wellbeing. We present key arguments to link degrowth and sustainability, and how it is possible to guide marketing and consumption towards degrowth. We find that seven other complementary logics address the issue of resource consumption, while only degrowth considers resource distribution as also being critical for sustainability. The paper brings a novel approach to the forefront of the sustainability rhetoric within management. We expand the conceptual and theoretical frontier by including degrowth in management research.