Opening ceremony, Pontevedra conference
2024 was a very active, creative, diverse and fruitful year for Degrowth with a series of conferences and festivals. First, the great Pontevedra Degrowth Conference which took place in June. Pontevedra was the 10th International Degrowth gathering, 16 years after the first one in Paris. Since then, Degrowth has become a well established and respected field of scientific research, specially considering that it was a joint conference with the European Society for Ecological Economics. For six days, 1100 registered attendees contributed to, and participated in, more than 220 sessions, on top of additional social, artistic, cultural, and political activities in the city.
Find videos, photos, summaries here and the report of the conference here.
The conference was preceded by the 5th International Assembly of the Degrowth Movement, organised by the International Degrowth Network (IDN), attended by more than one hundred highly dedicated people. Conversations and projects that were started at the assembly are pursued throughout the year in the IDN. You can join the IDN as an individual or an organisation in order to contribute to it and receive its support.
As a second part of the Barcelona Degrowth Summer School, the Degrowth bike caravan joined the conference in conviviality and in the rain, after a week riding more than 100 km meeting local initiatives in Galicia. Furthermore, for the first time we celebrated the annual Global Degrowth Day with a “protestival” in the middle of the Pontevedra International conference.
It would not be possible to mention all the gatherings that were relevant to Degrowth, but let’s mention some: the first Prosumer Economy Conference in Istanbul in May; in Copenhagen in June, the Degrowth Festival; in July in France, le festival de la décroissance; in Austria, the Altshift Festival; in September, the Licheni Festival in Italy and the Degrowth Political School in Slovenia; in October, the Metamorfosis Festival in Barcelona and the Agora de la Décroissance in Paris.
Additionally, following the successful Beyond Growth Conference at the EU Parliament in 2023, the idea emerged to relocalise such gatherings into national ones. Several have been organised in cooperation with some of the Beyond Growth Conference NGO partners: in Italy in April, Austria in May, Ireland and Denmark in June, France in September and Portugal in December. More are underway for 2025, for example, in Spain, Germany, Estonia, Norway and again in France.
In 2025, we will meet at the Oslo International Degrowth Conference which will also be a joint one, with the International Society for Ecological Economics. Again, we expect to be surprised and see the emergence of a very large diversity of regional, thematic conferences, festivals and gatherings all over Europe and also, hopefully, the world.
If most of events take place in Europe, post-development and Global Souths voices are central for degrowth. They were at the heart of the Pontevedra Conference opening, and will again be present in Oslo with an inaugural address by Colombian president Gustavo Petro.
We have entered into a dark time and degrowth has become more relevant than ever. We believe that it is time for our great movement to be creative and to dare explore new pathways toward ecological sustainability, social and environmental justice, conviviality and care, autonomy and solidarity, towards the enjoyment of life liberated from the mantra of growth at all costs. This also means that we might have to experiment with new formats for creating and protecting vibrant communities and sharing knowledge and experience.
After Oslo, as announced at the Pontevedra conference opening ceremony, we would like first to come back to a biennial rhythm and to explore new formats for the International Degrowth Conferences. How to make such gatherings even more inclusive, open and culturally and politically impactful? How to reconnect degrowth more with practice and social movements? Let’s do it together; stay tuned.
In 2024, Degrowth.info celebrates its 10th anniversary. We give you some insights into our collective: from our horizontal structure and our involvement in the degrowth movement to our team's political friendship and laughter.
After the excitement of an intense three-days Beyond Growth Conference 2023 (BGC), attended by 7,000 participants (on-site and online), the time is ripe to distil critical reflections.
Celebrate degrowth on June 4th 2022 - this year’s Global Degrowth Day! We call on everyone inspired by degrowth to organize (online) actions and events invoking the theme of Climate Justice. As usual, on Global Degrowth Day you are invited to explore the different ways out of growth-dependency, and to connect to inspiring (local) initiatives working on new paradigms relating to sustaina...
