Library

By: Daniel O'Neill

One of the difficult questions facing the degrowth community is how to achieve a high level of human well-being for 7 to 9 billion people without exceeding planetary boundaries. Drawing on data from the Degrowth Accounts and other recent work, we attempt to quantify the biophysical requirements of a “good life”, and relate these back to established planetary boundaries. We investigate the rel...

By: Pernilla Hagbert

The environmental impact and distributive implications of the built environment and our residential environments as mediating human endeavors is significant. Approaches addressing the resource intensity associated with modern ways of living need to go beyond a neo-liberal focus on individual consumption choices, thus widening the framing of sustainable homes as incorporating more than rational,...

By: Julien Rossi

Data surveillance by private companies and public intelligence agencies is intricated, and research has shown how citizens have become willing participants in their own surveillance. This brings forth a new type of governmentality that is legitimised by hegemonic imaginaries on “Big Data” and innovation which are closely related to the imaginary of technological growth. The Snowden disclosures...

By: Daniel Gerbery, Lidija Živčič, Lidija Živčič, Richard Filcak, Sergio Tirado Herrero

Austerity-driven, unsustainable degrowth has resulted in a surge of energy poverty in EU and beyond. Understood as the inability of households to secure a materially- and socially-necessitated level of energy services in the home, energy poverty has become a widespread societal concern that demands structural responses. Tensions are foreseen between energy poverty alleviation and degrowth. On ...

By: Sofía Ávila

In the context of climate change and energy concerns, wind energy production is being increasingly supported by international agencies, public policies and private investment. Although large-scale wind farms are promoted worldwide as win-win strategies, such projects are causing a growing number of local conflicts, bringing upon new dimensions to the energy transition debate. This paper studie...

By: Mikael Malmaeus

Historically, value theories used to be at the heart of critiques of capitalism. However, contemporary economists rarely focus on value theories, and the labor theory of value has not been discussed in relation to macroeconomic growth or in the context of degrowth. In this article it is theoretically and empirically demonstrated that economic values at the macroeconomic level are fundamentally ...

By: Ulrich Demmer

Degrowth, anthropology, and activist research. Towards a tool-kit of engaged research for the empowerment of degrowth movements and alter communities. How can the social sciences and in particular anthropology best contribute to empower and foster degrowth projects, alter communities and the socio-ecological movement? And what strategies of in particular activist anthropological research can co...

By: Saamah Abdallah

Degrowth is a post-materialist movement, which places value on the biosphere, human wellbeing, and justice, above and beyond the possession of material goods (Degrowth Declaration, 2008). And yet surveys suggest that levels of materialism are higher in post-socialist countries than in Western European countries (Kyvelidis, 2001). In the sixth round of the European Social Survey (2012), nine of ...

By: Phedeas Stephanides, Esra Erdem, Esra Erdem, Bianca Elzenbaumer Fabio Franz, Ana Inés Heras, Lise Skou

Rethinking Degrowth with Diverse Economies (Panel 1): Narratives and visions of actually-existing degrowth praxis As there seems to be no alternative to the capitalist status-quo, the task of overcoming capitalism through degrowth appears daunting. This implicates that degrowth concepts become confined to either pre-capitalist cultures or a future society. How, then, might we escape this stult...

By: Norbert Reuter, Jana Flemming

Dies ist ein Beitrag zum Projekt Degrowth in Bewegung(en), in dem es um Gewerkschaften geht. Info zum Projekt Degrowth in Bewegung(en): Degrowth ist nicht nur ein neues Label für eine Diskussion über Alternativen oder eine akademische Debatte, sondern auch eine im Entstehen begriffene soziale Bewegung. Trotz vieler Überschneidungen mit anderen sozialen Bewegungen gibt es sowohl bei diesen ...

By: Mateja Penava

Pope Francis’ ‘Laudato si’ is considered one of the three most important international, environmental documents of 2015. By using content analysis of the encyclical I explore if it can also be called a first major international degrowth policy recommendation for Catholics around the world. Despite using the mainstream concept of sustainable development, my paper investigates if Pope Francis is ...

By: Tadzio Müller

Dies ist ein Beitrag zum Projekt Degrowth in Bewegung(en), in dem es um die Klimagerechtigkeitsbewegung geht. Info zum Projekt Degrowth in Bewegung(en): Degrowth ist nicht nur ein neues Label für eine Diskussion über Alternativen oder eine akademische Debatte, sondern auch eine im Entstehen begriffene soziale Bewegung. Trotz vieler Überschneidungen mit anderen sozialen Bewegungen gibt es s...

By: Mark H Burton

I am part of a small collective that is promoting an alternative socio-economic approach to the society-economy-environment nexus in "post-industrial" Greater Manchester, England. I will describe the approach we have taken which is to promote alternative thinking via publication, networking, and working in alliances with actors from a variety of sectors. I will reflect on what we have learned f...

By: Mark Joób

Generally, there is not enough awareness of the central role the monetary system plays with regard to sustainability. One of the main reasons is that for several decades economics has been dominated by a monetary theory that gives a false description of the monetary system and the role of money in the economy. Assuming that money on the macroeconomic level is basically neutral, traditional mone...

By: Greta Taubert

Ist Zeit wirklich Geld? Fühlt man sich reich, wenn man unbegrenzt Zeit hat? Und kann ein anderer Umgang mit Zeit die Gesellschaft verändern? Greta Taubert will wissen, was Zeitwohlstand ist und besucht Menschen, die ihn leben. Sie nimmt sich Zeit, lässt sich treiben, wird inspiriert - und dabei immer aktiver. Im Club der Zeitmillionäre lernt sie neue Lebensentwürfe kennen und wird vor Herausfo...

By: Robert Costanza, James D. Ward, Paul C. Sutton, Adrian D. Werner, Steve H. Mohr, Craig T. Simmons

Abstract: The argument that human society can decouple economic growth—defined as growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP)—from growth in environmental impacts is appealing. If such decoupling is possible, it means that GDP growth is a sustainable societal goal. Here we show that the decoupling concept can be interpreted using an easily understood model of economic growth and environmental impact...

By: Tilman Santarius, Silke Helfrich, Lili Fuhr, Lili Fuhr, Thomas Fatheuer

Reconciling climate protection and resource conservation with economic growth in a finite and unjust world remains an illusion. With its positive associations, the term “green economy” suggests that the world as we know it can continue. However, making this promise requires deliberately downplaying complexity and having powerful faith in the miracles of the market economy and technological inno...

By: Roxana Morosanu

In the context of a post-humanist turn in social sciences that proposes to de-centre the human subject in order to emphasize the flat ontologies of networks, affect, and practices, the concept of human agency gets lost, or becomes easily dismissible. This paper argues that the social sciences of sustainability might be the field that currently needs the most to rethink and reintroduce human age...

By: Divyaraj Amiya

Showing some excerpts from my video film Delhi : After Twenty Years the presentation will try to raise some fundamental questions about what is accepted as normal daily life in India. The broad consensus around production of well-educated urban middle class as solution to the ills of social and economic crises in India will be questioned in the documentary report. What can be the root cau...

By: Dennis Eversberg, Barbara Muraca, Eric Pineault

Modern western societies stabilize themselves through economic growth. As long as growth is maintained, stability is continuously, yet dynamically restored. It is getting increasingly obvious that this dynamisation logic is reaching its limits, triggering negative effects for the socio-economic, political and cultural reproduction of capitalism. In industrialized countries, further growth seems...