Library

By: Quentin Couix

This paper provides a synthetic account of Georgescu-Roegen's flow-fund theory, as a contribution to the history of ecological economics. It reconstitutes Georgescu-Roegen's perspective on production, and its relationships with other frameworks, such as the neoclassical production function and input-output tables. The overall purpose is to clearly establish the foundations of the flow-fund th...

By: Michael Löwy

Should the ecological left aim to reduce all consumption, or to radically transform the prevalent type of consumption?  

By: Jan Groos

Wissenschaftlicher Podcast zu Degrowth und Akzelerationismus "Kann es so etwas geben wie nachhaltiges Wachstum? Oder sollten wir uns nicht vielmehr vom Prinzip des Wachstums an sich trennen und stattdessen andere Vorstellungen des guten Lebens entwickeln?"

By: Max Koch

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 case. This article argues that Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology can help theorize so...

By: Carla Sbert

Containing an in-depth study of the emerging theory and core of ecological law, this book insightfully proposes a 'lens of ecological law' through which the disparity between current laws and ecological law can be assessed. The lens consists of three principles: ecocentrism, ecological primacy and ecological justice. These principles are used within the book to explore and analyse the challenge...

By: Sarah Hafner, Aled Jones, Annela Anger-Kraavi, Irene Monasterolo

Well-known academic and non-academic institutions call for a new approach in economics able to capture features of modern economies including, but not limited to, complexity, non-equilibrium and uncertainty. In this paper, we provide a systematic review of ecological macroeconomic models that are suitable for the investigation of low-carbon energy transitions and assess them based on the feat...

By: Iana Nesterova

Abstract: Recent years have seen a revival in growth scepticism, yet degrowth in relation to the macroeconomic level has received almost exclusive attention. This resulted in a lack of literature on how post-growth and specifically degrowth visions of economy could be implemented, including from the perspective of firms and other organisations. This paper focuses on degrowth literature and fiel...

By: Michel Bauwens, Alex Pazaitis

Towards a P2P Infrastructure for a Socially-Just Circular Society How shared perma-circular supply chains, post-blockchain distributed ledgers, protocol cooperatives, and three new forms of post-capitalist accounting, could very well save the planet. The key issue addressed in this study is how to change a system which incentivizes and rewards extraction — but cannot recognize and reward ...

By: Ryan Gunderson, Diana Stuart, Brian Petersen

Abstract: In the midst of a wave of market expansion, carbon markets have been proposed as the best way to address global climate change. While some argue that carbon markets represent a modern example of a Polanyian counter-movement to the environmental crisis, we adopt a structural interpretation of Polanyi to refute this claim. Carbon markets represent a further expansion of markets that fa...

By: Angelos Varvarousis

Abstract: The decolonization of the social imaginary has been proposed as an important dimension of the transition towards a degrowth society. However, although omnipresent in the degrowth literature, the terms “social imaginary” and “social imaginary significations” have not been adequately explained. This creates a level of mystification that limits the analytical value of the degrowth frame...

By: Pasi Heikkurinen

Abstract: The call to transform the growth society lacks an analysis of the human will. Problematically for degrowth, the enactment of this so-called will to transform has undesired matter-energetic consequences. Every act of transformation requires matter–energy, adding to the cumulative throughput of societies. To revert the ecospherical metabolism from a state of overshoot to one of degrowt...

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,...

By: Kristoffer Wilén, Maria Sandberg, Kristian Klockars

Abstract: Scientists agree that changes in the organization of human society and economy are needed to stop the degradation of the natural environment. The most commonly proposed solution, green growth, has been increasingly criticized, but the offered alternative of degrowth has remained a marginal undertaking in academia and in practice. This article further develops the argument for degrowt...

By: Patricia E. Perkins

Abstract: Economic inequality reduces the political space for addressing climate change, by producing fear-based populism. Only when the safety, social status, and livelihoods of all members of society are assured will voluntary, democratic decisions be possible to reverse climate change and fairly mitigate its effects. Socio-environmental and climate justice, commoning, and decolonization are...

By: Valentin Baudouin

Considering the current ecological crisis, the concept of sustainable development, or ‘sustainability’ appears to have failed to meet the goals laid out by its authors at the 1992 Earth Summit of Rio de Janeiro. Sustainable development was originally perceived as the torchbearer of a new project, a new hope of protecting humanity’s general interest, a ‘magic formula meant to reconcile free trad...

By: Olivier Malay

The last four decades have seen a proliferation of new indicators aiming to challenge GDP. But do they really produce new outcomes? By observing the rankings they produce (compared to those produced by GDP), the potential of 6 Beyond GDP indicators to suggest a way towards a more social and ecological society has been examined. The conclusion is that rankings from indicators initiated by powerf...

By: Giorgos Kallis, Richard B. Norgaard, Jessica J. Goddard

Methodological pluralism has been a tenet of ecological economics since the journal's inauguration. Pluralism has fostered collaboration and forged new insights across disciplines. However, to counter the hegemonic voice of mainstream economics and inspire action on climate change and inequality, ecological economics requires coherence to produce meaningful knowledge from diverse research findi...

By: Stefanie Sievers-Glotzbach, Julia Tschersich

A fundamental transformation towards sustainability in face of complex social-ecological challenges needs to initiate deep changes of those incumbent system structures that support unsustainable trajectories, while at the same time encouraging a diversity of alternative practices. A review of transformation approaches towards sustainability shows that these do not (sufficiently) link processe...

By: Romain Svartzman, Dominique Dron, Etienne Espagne

This paper takes stock of the achievements and gaps of the emerging field of ecological macroeconomics, which has brought insights from specific schools of macroeconomics—most notably post-Keynesian—to ecological economics, with a strong emphasis on the endogeneity of money. Ecological macroeconomics has proposed fiscal, monetary and prudential reforms to boost ‘green’ investments, and develope...

By: Christos Zografos, Claudio Cattaneo, James Scott Vandeventer

Facing the intertwined environmental, social and economic crisis requires us to seriously consider alternatives to the current capitalist system, including the emerging concept of degrowth. Existing understandings of degrowth have focused on characterizing the shape, the key elements and the proposals for a degrowth society. However, its dynamic and evolving nature as an alternative vision of...