crisis or opportunity economic degrowth for social equity and ecological sustainability introduction to this special issue abstract this article reviews the burgeoning emerging literature on sustainable degrowth this is defined as an equitable downscaling of production and consumption that increases human well being and enhances ecological conditions at the local and global level in the short and long term the paradigmatic propositions of degrowth are that economic growth is not sustainable and that human progress without economic growth is possible degrowth proponents come from diverse origins some are critics of market globalization new technologies or the imposition of western models of development in the rest of the world all criticize gdp accounting though they propose often different social and ecological indicators degrowth theorists and practitioners support an extension of human relations instead of market relations demand a deepening of democracy defend ecosystems and propose a more equal distribution of wealth we distinguish between depression i e unplanned degrowth within a growth regime and sustainable degrowth a voluntary smooth and equitable transition to a regime of lower production and consumption the question we ask is how positive would degrowth be if instead of being imposed by an economic crisis it would actually be a democratic collective decision a project with the ambition of getting closer to ecological sustainability and socio environmental justice worldwide most articles in this issue were originally presented at the april 2008 conference in paris on economic degrowth for ecological sustainability and social equity this conference brought the word degrowth and the concepts around it into an international academic setting articles of this special issue are summarized in this introductory article hueting d alessandro and colleagues van den bergh kerschner spangenberg and alcott discuss whether current growth patterns are un sustainable and offer different perspectives on what degrowth might mean and whether and under what conditions it might be desirable matthey and hamilton focus on social dynamics and the obstacles and opportunities for voluntary social action towards degrowth lietaert and cattaneo with gavalda offer a down to earth empirical discussion of two practical living experiments cohousing and squats highlighting the obstacles for scaling up such alternatives finally van griethuysen explains why growth is an imperative in modern market economies raising also the question whether degrowth is possible without radical institutional changes

does economic recession reduce material use empirical evidence based on 157 economies worldwide abstract the research on economic recession has been more focused on the interactions between macroeconomic and financial variables however whether material use has been affected during the recession period has remained under explored in order to fill up this gap this study investigates the relationship between material use and economic recession as well as other socio economic drivers by using the material flow analysis and the system generalized method of moments for 157 economies worldwide during 1980 2011 results show that economic recession poses significant and negative impact on domestic material consumption at 1 level illustrating its role as a determinant factor on material mitigation by dividing the research sample into extractive and non extractive economies as well as high mid and low income groups we again confirmed the significant negative correlations as expected no significant sign is found between recession and physical trade balance besides other drivers such as population gross domestic production gdp per capita and technological variables also exert marked effects at different situations this research work provides an empirical study on how recession and other factors affect material use at various scenarios which have essential implications for understanding material flow dynamics in different economic cycles

sustainable de growth mapping the context criticisms and future prospects of an emergent paradigm article i nfo sustainable de growth is both a concept and a social grassroots northern movement with its origins in the fieldsofecologicaleconomics socialecology economicanthropologyand environmentalandsocialactivistgroups this paper introduces the concept of sustainable de growth by mapping some of the main intellectual influences fromthese fields with special focus on the francophone and anglophone thinking about this emergent notion we propose hypotheses pertaining to the appeal of sustainable de growth and compare it to the messages enclosed within the dominant sustainable development idea we scrutinize the theses contradictions and consequences of sustainable de growth thinking as it is currently being shaped by a heterogeneous body of literature and as it interacts with an ample and growing corpus of social movements we also discuss possible future paths for the de growth movement compared to the apparent weakening of the sustainable development paradigm

the proximity of nations to a socially sustainable steady state economy abstract there has been increasing interest in new economic models that aim to improve quality of life without increasing consumption this article provides the first empirical analysis of how close modern day economies are to the concept of a steady state economy and explores whether there is any relationship between a country s proximity to such an economy and its social performance the analysis is carried out using the degrowth accounts a set of 16 biophysical and social indicators that are derived from herman daly s definition of a steady state economy and the social goals of the degrowth movement these indicators are applied to 180 countries over a 10 year period the analysis reveals that the majority of countries in the world are biophysical growth economies there are only a small number of countries where resource use is relatively constant from year to year e g denmark france japan poland romania and the us and only four countries experiencing biophysical degrowth germany guyana moldova and zimbabwe there are no countries that achieve a true steady state economy defined as an economy with a stable level of resource use maintained within ecological limits however a few countries come relatively close including colombia cuba kyrgyzstan romania and south africa in general countries with stable resource use perform better on many social indicators than countries with either increasing or decreasing resource use this finding runs contrary to conventional economic thought however social performance is also higher in countries with greater per capita resource use overall these findings suggest that a steady state economy can be socially sustainable but countries need to become much more efficient at transforming natural resources into human well being if all seven billion people on earth are to lead a good life within ecological limits

can we use the energy intensity indicator to study decoupling in modern economies abstract the economic energy intensity of a country defined as the ratio between the energy consumed and the gross domestic product of a country is a widely adopted indicator of economic performance often applied to sustainability analysis the usefulness of this indicator has been challenged on the basis of the fact that the two variables making up this ratio are correlated this implies that when considered in isolation each one of these two variables energy consumption p c and gdp p c maps on to typologies of socio economic systems e g developed countries vs less developed countries however calculating their ratio produces an indicator which does not map on to any meaningful typology of economic system a number without an external referent this paper checks the validity of this criticism by looking at the economic energy intensity eei of 133 countries over the period 1960 2009 two approaches are used for this task 1 an analysis at a given point in time year 2009 after excluding countries with real gdp p c

shifting priorities in degrowth research an argument for the centrality of human needs we present an argument for the deprioritization of subjective well being and a prioritization of human needs within degrowth research first we discuss empirical evidence methodological problems and theoretical shortcomings of subjective well being concepts while data for one country over time suggest a flattening of the happiness curve relative to gdp growth cross country comparisons reveal that the richest and most environmentally unsustainable countries are also the happiest methodologically we point to the issue of adaptability a limitation in the use of positional goods is unlikely to be accompanied by short term increases in subjective well being theoretically we question happiness where it helps promote growth and disguise structural relationships of inequality secondly we sketch out an alternative degrowth research agenda oriented at the satisfaction of human needs here doyal and gough s theory of human needs is especially useful due to its systematic account of environmental limits and the policy auditing approach that follows from it finally we illustrate such a needs based research agenda at the example of food by reviewing recent research on the environmental impacts of different diets and kinds of food production and on how these forms compare in terms of scale and land use

sustainable innovation business models and economic performance an overview sustainable development requires radical and systemic innovations such innovations can be more effectively created and studied when building on the concept of business models this concept provides firms with a holistic framework to envision and implement sustainable innovations for researchers the concept provides an analytical tool that allows them to assess the interplay between the different aspects that firms combine to create ecological economic and social value in addition the business model concept provides a link between the individual firm and the larger production and consumption system in which it operates this paper provides an introduction to the special issue which emerged from selected papers presented at the erscp emsu 2010 conference held in delft the netherlands papers in the special issue cover a broad range from a conceptual discussion resulting in a research agenda the assessment of diffusion of specific business models such as product service systems the introduction of new management tools for business transition management to case studies on how specific business models evolved in specific communities together these papers provide insight into the promise of the business model concept for understanding and advancing sustainable innovation

sdg 8 decent work and economic growth a gendered analysis abstract sdg 8 calls for promoting sustained inclusive and sustainable economic growth full and productive employment and decent work for all even as it highlights the importance of labour rights for all it also makes visible some significant tensions we note for example that despite many critiques of narrow economic measures of growth the focus here remains on gdp and per capita growth this is problematic we argue because the gdp productive boundary excludes much of social reproductive work this puts sdg8 in tension with sdg 5 which calls for the recognition of the value of unpaid care and domestic work there has been a significant increase in the rate of working women in the formal and informal sector however there has not been a subsequent gender shift in the doing of social reproductive work in this paper we argue sdg 8 s focus on decent work and economic growth is inadequate that productive employment and decent work for all men and women by 2030 needs to take into account the value and costs of social reproduction we trace key historical debates on work to argue that both gender and labour rights have to underpin sdg 8 if its promise of inclusive sustainable and decent work is to be realized

sufficiency or efficiency to achieve lower resource consumption and emissions the role of the rebound effect a frequent criticism of eco efficiency strategies is that an increase in efficiency can be offset by the rebound effect sufficiency is discussed as a new strategy involving self imposed restriction of consumption but can also be subject to the rebound effect we show that the range of possible secondary effects of efficiency and sufficiency strategies goes beyond the rebound effect the rebound effect can indeed also be linked to eco sufficiency strategies but there are further secondary effects of both eco efficiency and eco sufficiency strategies such as double dividend effects we develop an eco efficiency sufficiency matrix to logically order eco efficiency and sufficiency measures to attain lower resource consumption and emissions

the impact of systemic factors on the deployment of cooperative projects within renewable electricity production an international comparison while cooperative organizations created with the aim to initiate develop and operate renewable electricity re projects have received attention for their roles in the transition to a sustainable

degrowth and collaborative value creation reflections on concepts and technologies abstract the concept of degrowth aims fundamentally at reducing material and energy throughput equitably while questioning the desirability of further economic growth in order to achieve this reduction of society s throughput radical changes in the ways goods and services are produced distributed and used are required in this think piece concepts of consumer integration into the value creation process and new enabling technologies are discussed as possible constituting elements of alternative organizational models in a degrowth society to date collaborative value creation concepts such as crowdsourcing and mass customization have been discussed almost exclusively as business model patterns for companies in economies that are set to grow the same applies to the assessment of new technologies such as additive manufacturing web based user interfaces for co creation and other flexible production technologies that allow for collaborative and individualized production potential positive and negative effects of these concepts and technologies with regard to the objectives of degrowth are discussed in order to initiate a debate about the inclusion of cvc for the design of alternative organizational models that are in line with degrowth thinking this think piece illustrates that several elements of collaborative value creation and its enabling technologies coincide with degrowth objectives but do not lead per se to their attainment thereby a starting point for future empirical work in this area is generated

detroit after bankruptcy a case of degrowth machine politics it is widely accepted that neoliberalism is intensified in times of crisis and jamie peck has argued that austerity urbanism has been implemented at the urban scale since the 2008 financial crisis this article questions whether this narrative of neoliberal expansion is applicable in cities where crisis is so severe that economic growth seems highly unlikely i focus on detroit whose recent declaration of bankruptcy signals the recognition among local officials and elites that the city s decline cannot be reversed with out of the box neoliberal policies instead the city s bankruptcy precipitated a breakdown of an interscalar growth coalition and local actors have embraced a plan for detroit s future which diverges from austerity urbanism favoured by extra local investors in significant ways importantly local actors have embraced a plan that seeks to improve the quality of life for the city s residents in the context of irreversible degrowth i refer to this as degrowth machine politics and i ex

smartphone enabled social change evidence from the fairphone case abstract there are two axioms that have shaped the degrowth discussion namely one on the reduction of production and consumption and one on the necessity of value and attitude change in society to respect environmental limits surprisingly little research has focused on the role of technology in connection to value change consumption behavior and degrowth this gap is linked to a widely held assumption of technological innovation acting contrary to degrowth in contrast this paper suggests that technological innovation needs to be connected to degrowth in particular the fast evolution of information and communication technologies in recent years points to their importance for the global civil society given the scope of sustainability challenges connected to these technologies and smartphones in particular this paper argues that a degrowth movement going hand in hand with technological development is only made possible if sustainable alternatives for highly demanded products are offered specifically this study draws on lifestyle movements as the nexus between consumption degrowth and technology three core concepts are found to influence the attendance to degrowth related consumer movements a sustainable lifestyle alternative forms of consumption and social commitment all of which are assumed to have a positive effect empirically this paper draws on the case of the fairphone a company that applies sustainable characteristics to a smartphone data collected in a survey via online fora of the fairphone from november 4 29 2015 are analyzed using a structural equation modeling with partial least squares results indicate that a sustainable lifestyle represents the dominant factor explaining the involvement with the fairphone surprisingly the findings show that alternative consumption seems to negatively influence the involvement with the fairphone and social commitment seems to play a minor role in the model these aspects point to the fairphone as a technical artifact centered on a choice for a sustainable lifestyle future research needs to reach clarification on the relationship of alternative consumption and degrowth related movements and whether the negative effect is case specific or beyond furthermore future studies need to delve deeper into lifestyle decisions as a leverage point towards degrowth especially on lifestyles understood as a from of activism to change contemporary society

green growth or degrowth assessing the normative justifications for environmental sustainability and economic growth through critical social theory 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 degrowth the article conducts a comparative analysis of the normative foundations of green growth and degrowth using frameworks from critical social theory the analysis shows that green growth and degrowth work toward different normative ideals that are justified in different ways the analysis shows that degrowth has a stronger normative justification than green growth and therefore should be preferred the article contributes to the debate about green growth and degrowth by establishing normative grounds for focusing efforts for environmental sustainability on degrowth rather than green growth

degrowth a missile word that backfires language use and cognition are generally underappreciated topics in ecological economics even if effective communication is essential for social and political impact to challenge the economic growth paradigm the concept and term degrowth has recently been embraced by various activists and scholars drawing on a body of evidence from cognitive science psychology and related fields we argue that using the word degrowth might be disadvantageous in public communications about alternatives to growth we begin by reviewing arguments in favor of the term then we outline three main counterarguments first degrowth has a downward orientation which triggers negative initial feelings due to the basic conceptual metaphor up is good down is bad this puts advocates of an alternative to the growth paradigm in an unfavorable starting position given that subsequent thought will be unconsciously biased by the initial feeling second more conscious reactions are likely to be negative as well because people unfamiliar with the term will mis interpret it as a contraction of the economy even though it is not always meant as such third degrowth repeats and possibly strengthens the growth frame and may activate undesirable frames associated with economic recessions to conclude we briefly discuss alternative terms and summarize key aspects to be considered for more effective communication

capitalist diversity and de growth trajectories to steady state economies abstract growth critical scholarship has done much to both expose the environmentally unsustainable nature of the capitalist growth economies of the overdeveloped part of the world and to develop an alternative vision of a de growth transition leading to a steady state economy however this scholarship fails to adequately take into consideration that if planned de growth actually materialised it would do so in societies that differ considerably from one another and that this would have implications both for the transition processes and the nature of their outcomes in other words not enough importance is ascribed to capitalist diversity and the nature of institutional change in the growth critical literature against this background the purpose of the present article is to make the concrete utopia of de growth scholars and steady state economists more specific by utilising insights from scholarship on capitalist diversity and institutional change on the basis of a typology of different models of capitalism the article suggests that if de growth transitions took place they would take different forms and lead to a variety of types of steady state economies sses to illustrate this point three ideal typical sses are delineated

decoupling between human development and energy consumption within footprint accounts abstract historically the growth of energy consumption has fuelled human development but this approach is no longer socially and environmentally sustainable recent analyses suggest that some individual countries have responded to this issue successfully by decoupling total primary energy supply from human development increase however globalisation and international trade have allowed high income countries to outsource industrial production to lower income countries thereby increasingly relying on foreign energy use to satisfy their own consumption of goods and services accounting for the import of embodied energy in goods and services this study proposes an alternative estimation of the decoupling index based on the total primary energy footprint rather than total primary energy supply an analysis of 126 countries over the years 2000 2014 demonstrates that previous studies based on energy supply highly overestimated decoupling footprint based results on the other hand show an overall decrease of the decoupling index for most countries 93 out of 126 there is a reduction of the number of both absolutely decoupled countries from 40 to 27 and relatively decoupled countries from 29 to 17 and an increase of coupled countries from 55 to 80 furthermore the study shows that decoupling is not a phenomenon characterising only high income countries due to improvements in energy efficiency but is also occurring in countries with low human development index and low energy consumption finally six exemplary countries have been identified which were able to maintain a continuous decoupling trend from these exemplary countries lessons have been identified in order to boost the necessary global decoupling of energy consumption and achieved welfare

degrowth from theory to practice abstract the collection of articles reviewed in this editorial presents an eclectic sample of the best contributions from the second international conference on degrowth exemplifying recent debates in the field and touching on different aspects of the multi dimensional transition at stake moving beyond theory and the construction of the degrowth proposal the articles in this special issue look at particular applications new methodologies and fresh policy options for example social enterprises are evaluated as primer candidates for a sustainable degrowth economy in the north lessons are also drawn from very different parts of the world such as cuba s experience with an oil and commodity shock to which it adapted through the introduction of ecological labour intensive agriculture in urban regions this special issue approaches from a degrowth perspective important sectoral issues in agriculture resource consumption and water the unsustainable fuel dependence of the spanish agrarian sector where the energy input for the production process is six times higher than the energy contained in finished food products is analysed in the context of the industrialization of food production rather than efficiency sufficiency in consumption is proposed as an organising societal principle and a call is made for stronger ngo action and coalition building in the direction of absolute rather than relative consumption reduction the obstacles to sufficiency policies are illustrated with a case study on water in the city of barcelona where a growth discourse is still dominant and a source of a technological and institutional deadlock against softer decentralized and more participatory forms of water management finally many of the contributions in this issue focus on work the policy option of a job guarantee scheme is examined as a tool to decouple jobs from economic growth and fiscal policy by bringing them to the realm of political rights this is complemented by a discussion of the social benefits of an amateur economy through work sharing and a socially beneficial reduction in labour productivity original data from barcelona analysed for this special issue shows that household activities an essential component of a more amateur economy have a much lower intensity of energy use than the paid sector delivery of equivalent services especially government and privatized caring services interesting research questions are identified concerning work under a degrowth trajectory not least whether reducing paid work will be possible in an energy scarce future put together the diverse contributions of this issue show that there is a vibrant and fertile degrowth research agenda with a range of open questions to which the community of this journal has much to offer

societal metabolism working hours and degrowth a comment on sorman and giampietro can we choose whether to degrow sorman and giampetro in this special issue argue that degrowth can only be forced upon us it will never be the outcome of voluntary or collective choice in this commentary i argue instead that although sooner or later we will have to degrow because of bio physical limitations we still have a choice of how to do it constructing a positive vision of degrowth as an inspirational political project that mobilizes citizens increases the likelihood of a prosperous way down i agree with the authors that in an energy scarce world we will have to work more to maintain the same level of material affluence but i contend that under conceivable conditions we might be equally happy with less work less energy and less material affluence a multi scalar analysis of societal metabolism is essential for the evaluation of degrowth policies and trajectories however unlike what sorman and giampietro suggest there is nothing in existing metabolic analyses that suggests that a prosperous degrowth trajectory is a priori impossible

framing the future of fracking discursive lock in or energy degrowth in the netherlands abstract hydraulic fracturing is a technology developed to improve and increase the production of natural gas in many countries including the netherlands it has caused environmental controversies in these controversies futurity framing may open up debates for alternative paradigms such as degrowth which is the pursuing of collective and deliberative downscaled production of natural resources and less consumption for convivial living based on a frame analysis it is demonstrated that opponents and proponents of fracking have envisaged pessimistic energy futures either to promote or devaluate fracking technology in addition the results show that dominant technological enthusiasm has enabled the introduction of degrowth technology which are downscaled decentralized and renewable energy technologies degrowth technology framing may provide a means of access for more radical degrowth thinking in the energy debates this empirical finding also indicates that the degrowth paradigm could include controversies as entry points for creating support for degrowth thinking

degrowth energy democracy technology and social ecological relations discussing a localised energy system in vaxjo sweden this paper offers a combined theoretical and empirical assessment of energy democracy and degrowth in relation to the case study of a city s municipally owned energy company in sweden energy democracy is a fairly new concept and is a normative proposal that aims at articulating prospects for reduction of consumption resource efficiency use of renewable sources of energy and community empowerment though degrowth and energy democracy have similar goals and orientation a combined analysis of both normative proposals remains underdeveloped the focus on energy democracy serves us to articulate a deeper discussion on how technology energy use and sustainability challenges interplay with definitions and meanings of degrowth vis a vis processes of capital accumulation empirically we use the case of a municipality based project of energy extraction and distribution in sweden to discuss degrowth and energy democracy perspectives in this context theoretically we develop insights from critical theories of technology a main conclusion of the paper is that prospects for energy democracy and degrowth are limited in the energy project approached in the paper as it is based on the use of forest resources a contested resource in the area and also because this project assumes the development of economic processes oriented towards economic growth within the framework of capital accumulation

towards sustainable de growth medical survey data as predictors for estimation of niche market value gluten free beer market case abstract big brewing companies often look for sustainable resource and energy management rather than for minimization of negative social impact or maximization of positive ones that s why sustainable degrowth in production sounds like nightmare to them several activities on market such as demand for product personalization force manufacturers response but few niche markets with huge personalization potential are still underestimated by big producers to bridge the gap between company profits and sustainable de growth the useful tools for niche market value estimation which could help in investments decision making have been worked out the medical data reports were used to assess the socio demographic characteristic of customer of gluten free beer this market is still in its starting phase as big producers are not especially interested in beer products which require significant investments in production process a celiac disease cd is chronic inflammatory enteropathy induced with presence of gluten its prevalence is estimated as 1 100 which suggest that 1 person per 100 absolutely can t drink typical barley wheat beer the equations for calculation model were elaborated based on medical reports of cd occurrence in poland and then in europe total population and adult population data in 2013 eurostat the bart haas report of beer production in 2013 and average prices of gluten free beers manufactured and sold in europe the final formulas of beer production increase and the value of gluten free beer market have been elaborated results reveal that almost 6 5 million of adult people in europe must comply with gluten free diet value of gluten free beer market in europe is estimated as 3 3 billion eur annual for average price 3 eur for 0 5 l introduction of gluten free beer into market will increase production by at least 0 1 up to even 1 it is a value in range of 0 55 5 5 million hectolitres per year

measuring progress in the degrowth transition to a steady state economy article i nfo in order to determine whether degrowth is occurring or how close national economies are to the concept of a steady state economy clear indicators are required within this paper i analyse four indicator approaches that could be used 1 gross domestic product 2 the index of sustainable economic welfare 3 biophysical and social indicators and 4 a composite indicator i conclude that separate biophysical and social indicators represent the best approach but a unifying conceptual framework is required to choose appropriate indicators and interpret the relationships between them i propose a framework based on ends and means and a set of biophysical and social indicators within this framework the biophysical indicators are derived from herman daly s definition of a steady state economy and measure the major stocks and flows in the economy environment system the social indicators are based on the stated goals of the degrowth

consumption of market goods and wellbeing in small scale societies an empirical test among the tsimane in the bolivian amazon abstract researchers propose sustainable degrowth as an alternative economic model to face current environmental crisis standard economic theory criticizes the viability of degrowth under the assumption that there is a causal link between wellbeing and the consumption of goods and services here we test the universality of the association between human wellbeing and the consumption of market goods a standard indicator of economic growth using a unique body of data collected among 600 adults in a small scale foraging horticultural society in the bolivian amazon the tsimane data include two measures of consumption weekly expenditures and annual consumption of durables and two measures of wellbeing self reported wellbeing and frequency of smiles multivariate analyses suggest that for this society in the early stages of integration to the market economy consumption of market goods is not associated with wellbeing the result is robust to the two measures of wellbeing to the measurement of consumption at the individual and at the household level and to other changes in the estimation model the analysis provides support to one of the social premises in which the theory of sustainable degrowth is based that human wellbeing does not necessarily bear a direct link with consumption of market goods

economic crisis and social learning for the provision of public services in two spanish municipalities economic crises pose challenges for the provision of public services but may also open up opportunities for social learning about how to achieve a sustainable society the main research question addressed in this paper is can economic crises catalyse social learning for a sustainable society the hypothesis of the paper is that social learning emerges in association with the reduction of consumption levels that follows degrowth or with the reconfiguration of infrastructure management practices and sustainable innovation that could lead to a transition to sustainability following this we empirically examine whether the crisis has led to social learning about the sustainable provision of public services in two similar municipalities in the north of spain after the economic crisis of 2008 we develop an interpretative analysis of individual experiences of learning from the crisis using a set of qualitative interviews with individuals who were involved in key decisions about public service delivery during or immediately after the crisis the analysis suggests that there has been a broader cultural change which is challenging institutional models of regional development that there has been a drive towards greater resource efficiency and that some opportunities have opened for entrepreneurs to develop sustainable innovations the findings support the view that the crisis may have fostered learning responses that could lead to either degrowth or a sustainable transition

ecological macroeconomics in the open economy sustainability unequal exchange and policy coordination in a center periphery model abstract this article introduces a novel environmental interpretation of a keynesian coordination game and develops four potential scenarios to remaining within a global carbon emissions constraint with inspiration from research on ecologically unequal exchange eue we demonstrate the drawbacks of present green growth strategies by considering how pollution and resource intensive industries are distributed unevenly in the world economy with large and increasing negative impacts on the periphery the situation may only be exacerbated if the reduction of emissions in the center is based on shifting heavy industries and extractive enterprises to low cost producers in the periphery in this way existing research likely overemphasizes the capacity of green investment policy to achieve sustainable outcomes our scenarios show that achieving global sustainability and improving global equity will require an impressive level of coordination between the center and periphery as well as a significant reduction in the rate of growth degrowth in the center

steady state of energy feedbacks and leverages for promoting or preventing sustainable energy system development abstract while energy demand has been growing over the last few decades and is projected to keep expanding the current energy system is pushing biophysical source and sink limits at the same time growing demand for energy globally is associated with an expansion of welfare to avoid undesired environmental and social implications of energy developments in the long run a systemic understanding of the dynamics promoting or preventing sustainable energy development is needed departing from daly s steady state economics theory this study conceptualizes a sustainable energy system using a systems thinking approach efficiency increase the central element of daly s theory defined as the service throughput ratio is put in the center of a conceptual analysis of a sustainable energy system and is carefully scrutinized meadows leverage points concept is used to facilitate an analysis of different policies that aim at promoting sustainable energy system development this study concludes that energy policies always need to be explored as part of the broader causality structure into which they are embedded otherwise their impacts on other variables in the system may be overlooked such as in the case of efficiency increase which is shown to have undesired side effects for the development of a sustainable energy system

a practice approach to the institutionalization of economic degrowth the degrowth literature is rich in critical debate about the unsustainability of the growth economies and in normative envisioning of a transition it lacks analyses on actual materialization and the nature of the change required there have been calls for research that pay attention to institutional constraints and possibilities of implementing a democratic process of sustainable degrowth this paper introduces a practice approach to institutional agency as a fruitful tool for future studies and politics of degrowth the potential of this approach is demonstrated through a struggle between finnish timebanking activists and the tax authorities the cultural and institutional transition promoted by radical bottom up initiatives requires a disruption of existing institutional arrangements some of which may be very persistent and supported by defenders who want to maintain the present institutional order in the case example the authorities and politicians managed to preserve the mechanisms through which certain sanctions are associated with the non compliance of timebanking with the income tax law a practice approach to institutionalization increases our understanding of institutional persistence and makes visible forces that support the present status quo it also enhances understanding of the opposing dynamics and gives tools to engage in more effective efforts to change institutions

dynamic governance of clean energy markets how technical innovation could accelerate climate policies abstract this article explores the governmental means to accelerate technical progress in climate protection it is based on selected best practice cases in which the diffusion of low carbon technologies has been accelerated by ambitious policies the empirical cases involve not just renewable energies but also energy efficiency the latter being considered more difficult in terms of governance the examples are taken from advanced oecd countries as well as from emerging economies this article will explore which factors have caused this dynamic development the conclusion reached will show that the interaction of positive feedback mechanisms which has already been described as virtuous cycle provides only a plausible theoretical explanation if the policy cycle is added to the market cycle and the innovation cycle climate policy should not only define ambitious targets but also address all three feedback mechanisms

south korean green growth and the jevons paradox an assessment with democratic and degrowth policy recommendations the policy instruments at the core of the notion of green growth are central to south korea s national strategy for green growth nsgg 1 green stimulus packages 2 price based or market corrective policies and 3 green research and development to bring about a technological shift that increases resource efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources this assessment of the nsgg explores the potentials and limitations of 3 in light of the jevons paradox the commonly found association between improved efficiency and increased resource use greenhouse gas ghg emissions and total energy use have increased since the implementation of the nsgg despite overall improvements in energy efficiency we argue that the jevons paradox is a fundamental limitation of the nsgg and suggest policy alternatives to the nsgg 1 increased public participation in environmental decision making and 2 economic degrowth

environment versus growth a criticism of degrowth and a plea for a growth in recent debates on environmental problems and policies the strategy of degrowth has appeared as an alternative to the paradigm of economic growth this new notion is critically evaluated by considering five common interpretations of it one conclusion is that these multiple interpretations make it an ambiguous and rather confusing concept another is that degrowth may not be an effective let alone an efficient strategy to reduce environmental pressure it is subsequently argued that a growth i e being indifferent about growth is a more logical social aim to substitute for the current goal of economic growth given that gdp per capita is a very imperfect indicator of social welfare in addition focusing ex ante on public policy is considered to be a strategy which ultimately is more likely to obtain the necessary democratic political support than an ex ante explicit degrowth strategy in line with this a policy package is proposed which consists of six elements some of which relate to concerns raised by degrowth supporters

the effects of transport regulation on the oil market does market power matter instruments used to regulate the consumption of oil in the transport sector include fuel taxes biofuel requirements and fuel efficiency standards however the effects that these have on oil consumption and price vary if market power is present in the oil market the directions of change in consumption and price might contrast with those in a competitive market as a result the market structure affects not only the effectiveness of the policy instruments used to reduce oil consumption but also the terms of trade and carbon leakage in particular reduced oil consumption as a result of increased fuel efficiency standards will unambiguously increase the price of oil under a monopoly

the circular economy swings and roundabouts abstract in the last few decades the circular economy has increasingly been advertised as an economic model that can replace the current linear economy whilst addressing the issues of environmental deterioration social equity and long term economic growth with the explicit suggestion that it can serve as a tool for sustainable development however despite the individual prominence of the circular economy and sustainable development in the academic and wider literature the exact relationship between the two concepts has neither been thoroughly defined nor explored the consequent result is various inconsistencies occurring across the literature regarding how the circular economy can serve as a tool for sustainable development and an incomplete understanding of how its long term effects differ from those of the linear economy a literature review was conducted to interpret the current conceptual relationship between the circular economy and sustainable development the review highlights numerous challenges concerning conceptual definition economic growth and implementation that inhibit the use of the circular economy as a tool for sustainable development in its current form the review concludes by providing suggestions for how research concerning the circular economy should proceed if it is to provide a potential approach for achieving sustainable development

household work and energy consumption a degrowth perspective catalonia s case study the present work contributes to bringing visibility to the part of social work that is referred to as unpaid work this part of social work remains outside the market but it is necessary to structure and maintain households human relationships and communities and providing sustenance and care it represents a flow of hidden subsidies to the economy mostly shaped structured and experienced by women through an explorative case study in catalonia we relate the use of time in catalan society with the relative consumption of energy this research strategy allows us to see the dangers of substituting labour and skills from household based production to the commodity based economy in terms of an increase in energy demand in a context of the end of cheap oil on the contrary from a degrowth perspective we argue that the future adaptability might require policies reallocating resources towards the unpaid and the community

community renewable energy at a crossroads a think piece on degrowth technology and the democratization of the german energy system abstract degrowth activists and scholars have questioned society s current levels of material throughput and energy use the energy sector is at the core of any modern economy and germany serves as an international showcase for the transition of a large industrialized economy to a low carbon energy system diverse actors organizational models and technologies have contributed to the initiation of germany s energy transition through a wide range of community renewable energy projects the think piece investigates how far these diverse actors embrace the aims of the degrowth movement it also provides a critical account of on the ground realities through six hypotheses and contrasts them with claims made by the degrowth movement it is suggested that community renewable energy projects are at a crossroads while many projects have familiarized thousands of people with alternative economic models there is little evidence of a general change in attitudes towards technology consumption or equity in conclusion a major effort is needed to open initiatives to less affluent actors oppose recent trends of commodification and prevent community renewable energy projects from being engrossed by the dominant political and economic system

towards sustainable household consumption exploring a practice oriented participatory backcasting approach for sustainable home heating practices in ireland current attempts to encourage sustainable consumption are failing to make significant advancements and consumption by households in daily practices continues to grow interventions in this area are often based on simplistic behavioural assumptions which overlook the embeddedness of daily consumption practices and fail to challenge escalating consumption demands and expectations against this background there is a need to consider more radical socio cultural technological and organisational innovations that may fulfil the goals of daily practices more sustainably in the future taking the case of home heating the most energy intensive practice in irish households this paper reports on a participatory backcasting study that developed future scenarios and action plans for sustainable heating in contrast to conventional behavioural change models and forecasting techniques this study adopted a social practice orientation this paper focuses on the operationalisation of the social practice approach with special reference to the iterative processes around scenario development and the resultant backcasting outputs participant evaluations of the procedure are presented which indicate that despite significant operational complexity the process was strongly valued and provided significant opportunity for learning amongst stakeholders involved whether such approaches can be integrated into governing systems however will depend on a willingness amongst stakeholders to embrace a radical reconceptualisation of behaviour

local currencies for purposive degrowth a quality check of some proposals for changing money as usual this article provides a quality check of the degrowth movement s proposal of local currencies as tools for advancing socially equitable and ecologically sustainable degrowth the article draws comprehensively upon mainly english language academic research about four widespread local currency types lets time banks hour currencies and convertible local currencies clcs to assess their performance with respect to four degrowth related criteria community building advancement of alternative values in economic exchange facilitation of alternative livelihoods and eco localization lets have been found to support alternative livelihoods under quite uncommon conditions and contribute indirectly to eco localization by moderately facilitating informal resale repair and sharing of commercially produced goods although their burdensome management and confinement to small memberships limit their usefulness time banks help expand social networks and are best at reaching the socially excluded however they are confined to unskilled personal services and dependent on grant funding hour currencies do not stand out with regard to any criteria but may have a minor capacity to promote local purchasing clcs are best at attracting local businesses but no significant evidence of their said capacity to localize supply chains has surfaced as yet and their business friendly design works to the detriment of other criteria in sum existing research provides a very weak basis for advocating local currencies as tools for purposive degrowth local currencies are here categorized as two utopian socialist approaches the behind society s back variety of lets and hour currencies and the appeal to elites variety of time banks and clcs marx and engels s critiques of these approaches remain valid successful monetary systems require resources that are not available behind society s back notably the power to levy taxes and designate by which means they can be paid local currencies that appeal for elite support without mass popular backing have shaken off most radical connotations and are vulnerable to changing policy agendas given the present historical conjuncture of popular outrage against the banking sector this paper argues that the degrowth movement would improve its chances of contributing to purposive degrowth by prioritizing government centred ecological reform of the monetary system over local currencies

a degrowth transition pathways for the degrowth niche to replace the capitalist growth regime abstract 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 the future and the dynamics of a transition toward degrowth are inadequately considered this paper seeks to address this conceptual gap through a reconceptualisation of degrowth as a radical niche innovation to the capitalist growth regime by extending the multi level perspective framework to the capitalist growth system we undertake a critical reconsideration of the multi level perspective exposing key assumptions of this framework grounded in capitalist economic theory through this we propose a pluriversal potential pathway for change to consider this further a bibliometric analysis is used to measure and visualize research activity in degrowth as a proxy for the processes of development of the degrowth niche then we return to the multi level perspective to consider two potential pathways for change involving the degrowth niche and the capitalist growth regime finally we point to areas for further research that build on this new conceptualisation of a degrowth transition

a review on circular economy the expected transition to a balanced interplay of environmental and economic systems el articulo muestra un estudio en donde se proporciona una revision extensa de la literatura de las dos ultimas decadas con el proposito de captar las principales caracteristicas y perspectivas de la ce economia circular origenes principios basicos ventajas y desventajas modelado e implementacion de ce en los diferentes niveles micro meso y macro en todo el mundo los resultados demuestran que los origenes de la ce se basan principalmente en la economia ecologica y ecologia industrial

the economics of degrowth economic degrowth is ecologically desirable and possibly inevitable but under what conditions can it become socially sustainable how can we have full employment and economic stability without growth what will happen to public spending and to public debt how would production be organised in a degrowing economy and under what plausible socio political conditions could such grand changes happen standard economic theories and models ignore these questions for them economic growth is an axiomatic necessity this article reviews recent contributions in the economics of degrowth and identifies research avenues for ecological economists

the wellbeing consumption paradox happiness health income and carbon emissions in growing versus non growing economies abstract we investigate the relationships between carbon intensive consumption and two dimensions of human wellbeing physical health and happiness for 120 countries over the 2005 2015 period long term 10 year relationships are analysed to re assess the happiness income paradox i e easterlin paradox which states that changes in national income and happiness are correlated in the short term but not in the long term we broaden the scope of easterlin s analysis in two novel ways first the evidence for a health income paradox is explored second a parallel analysis using national consumption based carbon footprints instead of income is conducted to explore complementary relationships with both of the wellbeing indicators we show that countries with declining per capita consumption measured in terms of either gross domestic product gdp or carbon footprint have significant reductions in average happiness in contrast countries with growing per capita consumption have no significant change in happiness there is no relationship between changes in per capita consumption and health irrespective of whether gdp or carbon footprint is growing or not these findings apply to rich and poor countries alike and are robust to the inclusion of other social indicators such as social support and autonomy we find that happiness is less sensitive to declines in carbon footprint than declines in gdp thus lending support to calls for decoupling carbon emissions from economic growth however observed decoupling trends are insufficient to meet climate targets if the 2 target is to be met without a decline in wellbeing then either decoupling must be vastly improved or happiness levels must be made less sensitive to declining consumption

in defence of degrowth abstract this article defends the proposal of sustainable degrowth a starting premise is that resource and co2 limits render further growth of the economy unsustainable if degrowth is inevitable the question is how it can become socially sustainable i e a prosperous and stable rather than a catastrophic descent pricing mechanisms alone are unlikely to secure smooth adaptation a full ensemble of environmental and redistributive policies is required including among others policies for a basic income reduction of working hours environmental and consumption taxes and controls on advertising policies like these that threaten to harm the economy are less and less likely to be implemented within existing market economies whose basic institutions financial property political and redistributive depend on and mandate continuous economic growth an intertwined cultural and political change is needed that will embrace degrowth as a positive social development and reform those institutions that make growth an imperative sustainable degrowth is therefore not just a structuring concept it is a radical political project that offers a new story and a rallying slogan for a social coalition built around the aspiration to construct a society that lives better with less

challenges in assessing public opinion on economic growth versus environment considering european and us data abstract the enduring scientific debate about economic growth versus the environment has recently received new impetus nonetheless there is virtually unanimous support for growth in politics this may partly be due to an assumed social consensus about the desirability of growth here we examine public perceptions relevant to the growth debate by using data from a large number of representative surveys conducted in europe and the us the main findings are i a relative majority of respondents seem to believe that economic growth and environmental protection are compatible even though a fraction of the population might have unstable opinions ii when people have to choose environmental protection is prioritized in most surveys and countries and iii the public has limited factual knowledge of relevant concepts and data such as the meaning of economic growth and past gdp growth rates these findings are discussed and further qualified we highlight the importance of methodological aspects such as question wording and format in the interpretation of the results and draw implications for political debate and future research on economic growth and the environment

degrowth business framework implications for sustainable development 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 fields of knowledge which share a similar or sympathetic perspective regarding the undesirability of economic growth and desirability of living within planetary boundaries while pursuing wellbeing it then applies degrowth vision to firms and identifies potential elements of a business for a degrowth economy here referred to as a degrowth business these elements comprise a degrowth business framework the framework is centred around the following groups 1 environment 2 people and non humans and 3 deviation from profit maximisation imperative it aims to contribute to an emerging discussion on what firms should be like for a degrowth economy and society to be possible

degrowth taking stock and reviewing an emerging academic paradigm degrowth has evolved within a decade from an activist movement into a multi disciplinary academic paradigm however an overview taking stock of the peer refereed degrowth literature is yet missing here we review 91 articles that were published between 2006 and 2015 we find that the academic degrowth discourse occupies a small but expanding niche at the intersection of social and applied environmental sciences the discourse is shaped by authors from high income mainly mediterranean countries until 2012 articles largely constitute conceptual essays endorsed by normative claims more recently degrowth has branched out into modelling empirical assessments and the study of concrete implementations authors tend to agree in that economic growth cannot be sustained ad infinitum on a resource constraint planet and that degrowth requires far reaching societal change whether degrowth should be considered as a collectively consented choice or an environmentally imposed inevitability constitutes a major debate among degrowth thinkers we argue that the academic discourse could benefit from rigid hypotheses testing through input output modelling material flow analysis life cycle assessments or social surveys by analyzing the potentials for non market value creation and identifying concrete well being benefits the degrowth discourse could receive wider public support and contribute to a paradigmatic change in the social sciences

the transition of germany s energy production green economy low carbon economy socio environmental conflicts and equitable society low carbon transitions have been predominantly analysed using quantitative methods mostly building on present and forecasted data of social metabolism this paper addresses both the economic and social dimensions of low carbon emissions by analysing the presence of socio environmental conflicts in germany these conflicts appear to be a consequence of unsustainable policies targeting firms planning and behaviour mainly based on neoclassical economic thinking and various stakeholder groups that oppose carbon intensive businesses by applying a delphi method with 18 experts the authors analyse 117 socio environmental conflicts e g derived from extractive activity energy production and infrastructure projects in germany most of these conflicts include the struggle of various society groups to achieve a low carbon economy but also a more equitable society the analyses presented in this paper shows that germany provides both the best and the worse of achieving low carbon paths a significant investment into renewable energy but also a strong dependency on lignite which supplies the most polluting power stations of europe by addressing the problem from a historical perspective the authors demonstrate how carbon intensive extractive activity has been one of the major causes for environmental activism and protest in both socialist and capitalist societies

can degrowth overcome the leakage problem of unilateral climate policy abstract unilateral climate policy suffers from carbon leakage i e the partial offset of the initial emission reduction by increases in other countries different than most typically discussed climate policies degrowth not only aims at reducing the fossil fuel use in an economy but rather besides other social and political goals at a reduction of all factor inputs which may lead to different leakage implications we conduct the first investigation of degrowth in a multi country setting in order to i compare the leakage effects of national pure emission reduction policies to degrowth scenarios ii identify underlying channels by decomposing the implied emission changes into scale composition and technique effects and iii investigate which country characteristics determine degrowth s relative effectiveness to overcome the leakage problem using a structural gravity model we find that degrowth indeed significantly reduces leakage by keeping the sectoral composition of the country more stable and reducing uncommitted countries incentives to shift towards more energy intensive production techniques the higher effectiveness of degrowth in reducing carbon emissions is most pronounced for small and trade open economies with comparatively clean production technologies

complementary system perspectives in ecological macroeconomics the example of transition investments during the crisis globally societies are facing a number of interrelated environmental economic and social crises this paper is intended to contribute to the development of an ecological macroeconomics that addresses these multiple crises in combination insights from different research communities will be included in this effort taking an ecological economic understanding of sustainability as the point of departure and inspired by systems thinking it is discussed which economic sub systems should be in focus for sustainability transitions and whether relevant guides for sustainability can be formulated for these systems in particular the focus is on systems that are decisive for resource consumption and pollution although their influence on these is indirect a simple typology of sub systems is suggested and applied in relation to an example that highlights the importance of the interplay between macroeconomic provision and distribution systems the example concerns investments in sustainability transitions of provision systems and demonstrates the complexities of implementing such transformations during the economic crisis it also addresses the need for ecological macroeconomics to develop a third position beyond austerity policies and keynesian approaches

degrowth initiatives in the urban water sector a social multi criteria evaluation of non conventional water alternatives in metropolitan barcelona abstract debates on degrowth have mainly focused on theoretical issues specially around the unsustainability of the current economic model based on growth along those lines some scholars have dealt with the opportunities and barriers to voluntary social action for degrowth at a general level notwithstanding the key importance of such debates we argue that local strategies to move towards degrowth are still to be explored departing from the specific case of water in this paper we interrogate the compatibility of non conventional centralised and decentralised water supply technologies desalination reclaimed water reuse greywater reuse and rainwater harvesting with degrowth principles taking as a case study the metropolitan area of barcelona spain a social multi criteria evaluation has been performed to explore the feasibility desirability and acceptability of both models the paper aims to explore the pros and cons of the different water alternatives in two different and hypothetic societies one based on growth business as usual and one based on degrowth the technical analysis reveals that rainwater harvesting and reclaimed water reuse are the most preferred alternatives from a degrowth perspective while reclaimed water reuse and desalination are the most preferred alternatives from a growth perspective the social multi criteria analysis also serves to unveil which social actors may favour or block the adoption of each alternative notwithstanding that most social groups see desalination as the least desired option this is the hegemonic non conventional source in spain which evidences the prevalence of growth discourses in water management local decision makers city council managers and environmental groups clearly opt for the promotion of rainwater harvesting and as a result they appear as potential allies to promote degrowth in water consumption the social multi criteria evaluation helps to elucidate the main challenges that need to be addressed in the pursuit of a more sustainable and equitable water management

financial stability at risk due to investing rapidly in renewable energy we present novel insights about effective energy policies using an agent based model the model describes relevant feedback mechanisms between technological evolution the interbank market and the electricity sector analysis with it shows that energy policies affect interbank connectivity and hence the likelihood of cascades of bank failures this effect has not been studied before in the literature in particular we find that investments in renewable energy reduce interbank connectivity increasing the probability of bank failures while raising taxes on energy has an opposite effect increasing the share of renewable energy in electricity production initially increases the price of electricity and thus improves profits and the ability to re pay debts of incumbent power plants however when the share of renewable energy increases too quickly financial stability may be at stake as the burden of financing investments in renewable energy offsets the improved profitability of existing power stations all in all this study provides a unique and novel perspective on the relationship between renewable energy investments and financial stability

efficiency evaluation of material and energy flows a case study of chinese cities abstract the environmental impact of materials and energy is an important concern when cities and regions produce goods and services to examine this requires an evaluation tool which can deal with the complex system of resources energy inputs products and wastes involved this paper evaluates the urban material and energy flow efficiencies of 31 cities in china using a combination of the data envelopment analysis model and principal component analysis method the results show that the urban flow system is composed of several input and output principal components including energy materials urban capital investment overall output wastes and others in 2010 16 cities were efficient as judged by the material and energy inputs and outputs the remaining 15 cities were not efficient primarily due to product shortfalls and waste excesses since 2000 half of the analyzed cities experienced a decline in the urban flow efficiencies while only six cities showed a positive trend the reasons include excess inputs of coal coke electricity cement investment as well as output shortfalls in terms of overall output wastes services agriculture and transport we conclude that key priorities for improving urban systems with material and energy flow inefficiency are the use of urban renewable supplies focus on sustainable endogenous development model and improvement management of waste output in order to increase efficiency and sustain economic growth

need entitlement and desert a distributive justice framework for consumption degrowth abstract post growth societies seek socio ecological transformations towards a just and sustainable redistribution and reduced consumption of natural capital there is no one universally just and ecologically sustainable way of fulfilling these redistribution and consumption objectives it depends on the criteria used and their underlying ethical teleology we suggest three distribution criteria borrowed from the foundations of the environmental justice ej movement need entitlement and desert by juxtaposing and problematising the needs entitlements and deserts of nature and society these criteria comprise an ethical framework for consumption degrowth praxis in communities we present arguments for how each distribution criterion fulfils the aims articulated in the degrowth corpus based on these arguments we propose seven justice based community action principles for redistribution under degrowth in our discussion of these derived principles we demonstrate that like ej degrowth seeks consequential as well as deontological justice underscoring their deep complementarity therefore our need entitlement desert framework may serve as a useful guiding frame to include ethical distribution considerations in societies pursuit of post growth futures

macroeconomic narratives in a world of crises an analysis of stories about solving the system crisis since the financial crisis in 2008 a series of publications on macroeconomic responses to the compound crises of the economy and the environment have emerged under labels such as green new deal green growth and the great transition attempts at offering coherent responses to the crises have been made these responses have in common that they all present a large number of policy proposals for ways in which to solve the current crises and achieve a sustainable economy this article provides a mapping of a selection of such responses and an analysis of their content the analysis combines discourse theory and narrative analysis and investigates discourses by studying the narratives they produce the study thus contributes to the long line of analyses on discourses on sustainable economy empirically by investigating and analysing a number of macroeconomic proposals for solving the system crisis and theoretically by elaborating on the concept of narrative dynamics in relation to persuasive strength in political decision making

the energetic metabolism of societies and the degrowth paradigm analyzing biophysical constraints and realities the belief that it is possible to have a perpetual economic growth based on fossil energy has been challenged since the 1970s however only in the last decade is this issue re emerging once again because of the predicaments of climate change and peak oil many finally start to perceive that an economic degrowth entailing a downscaling of the current size and pattern of socio economic systems seem unavoidable in this paper we analyze the implications the feasibility and the desirability of possible trajectories of downscaling from an energetic perspective the quantitative analysis is based on the methodological approach of societal metabolism and it provides a dynamic accounting of the profile of energy flows required and consumed by societies in relation the expression of a given set of societal functions this analysis makes it possible to check two types of constraints external constraints supply and sink side limits for the whole and internal constraints the feasibility of energy budget of the various parts of the society expressing the required functions the analysis of the metabolic pattern of a sample of developed countries is used to discuss possible implications of i demographic changes ii the declining supply of net energy sources and iii the effects of the jevons paradox within such an analysis a few assumptions and recipes of the degrowth movement seem problematic i population is and will remain as a relevant variable to be considered ii the proposed reduction in working hours seem to be impractical unless a major catastrophe will reset current civilization to pre industrial standards and iii voluntary reduction of personal energy consumption even if a welcome adjustment alone will not solve the existing problems in the final part of the paper future energetic road maps are questioned within the realm of post normal science can we plan degrowth if we are serious about the need of doing something completely different societies will have to learn how to deliberate under uncertainty within the realms of flexible management and stop planning for either growth or degrowth moreover before suggesting policies it would be wise first to try to understand the option space

procedures and criteria to develop and evaluate household sustainable consumption indicators abstract communication about very complex problems like household sustainable consumption in simple terms is still a major challenge despite the diversity of tools to measure household consumption clearer indicators are needed to more effectively communicate with the general public the main objective of this research was to develop an approach to define the main procedures and criteria to built household sustainable consumption assessment tools based on indicator sets a review of available household sustainable consumption assessment metrics and related initiatives was conducted this included a comparative analysis of the different approaches the review revealed that the majority of these initiatives are focused upon specific domains e g energy or waste but none used an integrated approach in the sustainable consumption domains furthermore it was found that few methods used indicators to measure and assess household sustainable consumption principal components and a checklist of key good practice factors that a household sustainable consumption indicator system should include were developed due to the need to communicate effectively to engage stakeholders and to address the complexity involved in the measurement and assessment of household sustainable consumption the proposed integrated approach was designed to evaluate household sustainable consumption

do multinationals deteriorate developing countries export prices the impact of fdi on net barter terms of trade this paper explores the economic relationship between foreign direct investment fdi to developing countries and the export prices of the latter measured by terms of trade it is rst shown that economic theory suggests such a relationship for various reasons but is inconclusive about the direction of the eect to address this open issue empirically i analyze data on more than 50 developing countries throughout the period 1980 2008 using robust dynamic panel data methods the results show that fdi had an economically relevant and statistically signicant positive impact on developing countries net barter terms of trade a higher level of education in the developing country fosters this eect

transforming market nature relations through an investigative practice degrowth theorists and practitioners have challenged the economic growth paradigm and sought for economic cultural and political alternatives that would respect the planetary boundaries their strategy has generally been to either reject the formal market system as a whole and experiment with alternative practices outside markets or suggest changes in the policies that regulate markets they have paid less attention to potential changes in market cultures this paper seeks to foster the cultural transformation of current market nature relations while retaining the radical core of degrowth the paper presents an investigative practice that was found in an ethnographic study of an evolving forest based market in finland the practice seems to have the potential to disrupt habitual ways of approaching nature and of turning it into exchangeable and consumable objects according to practice theory this kind of disruption creates space for emerging alternatives to the dominant practices in this sense the investigative practice works similarly to an environmental shock without the harmful material effects in addition the investigative practice involves a critical approach that supports a transition toward sustainable market nature relations

discursive synergies for a great transformation towards sustainability pragmatic contributions to a necessary dialogue between human development degrowth and buen vivir abstract there is a growing awareness that a whole societal great transformation of polanyian scale is needed to bring global developmental trajectories in line with ecological imperatives the mainstream sustainable development discourse however insists in upholding the myth of compatibility of current growth based trajectories with biophysical planetary boundaries this article explores potentially fertile complementarities among trendy discourses challenging conventional notions of un sustainable development human development degrowth and buen vivir and outlines pathways for their realization human development presents relative transformative strengths in political terms while degrowth holds keys to unlocking unsustainable material structural entrenchments of contemporary socio economic arrangements and buen vivir offers a space of cultural alterity and critique of the euro atlantic cultural constellation the weaknesses or blind spots achilles heels of each discourse can be compensated through the strengths of the other ones creating a dialogical virtuous circle that would open pathways towards a global new great transformation as one of the main existing platforms for pluralist and strong sustainability discussions ecological economics is in a privileged position to deliberately foster such strategic discursive dialogue a pathway towards such dialogue is illuminated through a model identifying and articulating key discursive docking points

a meta analysis investigation of the direction of the energy gdp causal relationship implications for the growth degrowth dialogue abstract the complex relation between energy use and the economic process has long attracted attention issues such as the scarcity of energy resources energy theory of value degrowth and a growth approaches are closely related to the relationship between energy and development the present study traces the implications of the energy gdp causality dialogue for the context of the growth degrowth debate where the energy development link plays a decisive role in that context the present research investigates the possible existence of a fundamental macro direction of causality between energy use and economic growth that is not influenced by study specific characteristics and events towards this objective we perform a meta analysis that takes into account 158 studies on causality between energy and gdp covering the period 1978 2011 this is the first time to our knowledge that meta analysis has been applied to investigate the direction of the energy and gdp causal relationship the meta analysis results neither support the existence of a fundamental macro direction nor the so called neutrality hypothesis e gdp in the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth

an equilibrium framework for the analysis of a degrowth society with asymmetric agents sharing and basic income abstract this paper presents a novel equilibrium framework allowing for asymmetries in the initial wealth allocations labour supplies as well as in the preferences of optimizing agents the framework is applied to study a degrowth society where a subset of agents voluntarily limit their material consumption thereby complying with voluntary simplicity vs at micro level the utility maximization problems of asymmetric agents are formulated and solved for optimal labour supplies new macro level equilibrium solutions accounting for wealth inequality are presented based on different labour supply models the equilibrium welfare is measured using a bernoully nash aggregate an increase in the share of the vs type agents implies a degrowth transition to a lower level of average consumption analysis of the equilibrium framework shows that degrowth whereby average market based consumption falls improves the equilibrium welfare assuming the vs type agents have sufficient resources enabling a reduction in labour supplies sharing collaborative consumption and basic income support welfare increasing degrowth any growing economy can eventually reach the size at which degrowth would improve the welfare simulations suggest that degrowth can also yield a pareto improvement in welfare

degrowth and public health in cuba lessons from the past after the collapse of the communist bloc in the 1990s cuba experienced a severe economic crisis in its drastic reduction in fuels its negative economic growth data due to declining production and consumption rates and in its adaptations to shrinking resources and to local and labor intensive production modes this so called special period had elements of an experiment in degrowth looking at economic social and agricultural reactions to the crisis this paper identifies a consistent commitment to social services a shift in agricultural methods and a high level of social capital as main reasons for this outcome balancing this result with negative implications of the crisis notably the lack of political freedom and of long term sustainability the paper seeks to draw lessons for future degrowth scenarios

knowledge collaboration and learning by aligning global sustainability programs reflections in the context of rio 20 abstract there is widespread concern that the economy is crashing against the earth already causing problems in terms of climate change water depletion and loss of biodiversity yet the global economy still will have to grow two to four fold to provide all future global inhabitants with the average yearly income of 10 000 that is needed to have a reasonable life expectancy and human development index rio 20 was intended to reconcile the need for poverty eradication with a green economy but had limited perceived success this paper analyses how some of the major international sustainability programs that contributed to rio 20 could have supported a more far reaching outcome two problems are identified the programs showed significant overlap and the programs themselves were often incremental in nature seeking compromises and avoiding more radical approaches such as the degrowth agenda to address the first problem we suggest how a natural process of mutual collaboration learning and strengthening could occur the un green economy initiative could focus on providing the socio economic rationale for sustainability bodies like the ipcc and the unep resources panel could focus on providing the environmental rationale and planetary limits related to sustainability programs in the field of sustainable consumption and production as well as resource efficient and cleaner production could focus on providing hands on support and proof of how to change direction there seems no clear cut answer for the second problem some authors suggest relying more on action outside formal policy systems that by nature seek compromises however they also see a required role for government action which is exactly what rio 20 and its supportive policy programs failed to achieve and negotiate

potentials for prosperity without growth ecological sustainability social inclusion and the quality of life in 38 countries recent contributions to ecological economics and related social sciences indicate that issues such as climate change resource depletion and environmental degradation cannot be effectively addressed under conditions of continued economic growth this paper aims at empirically identifying structural potentials and policy challenges for prosperity at scales where economic development remains within ecological carrying capacities building on the growing literature that interprets prosperity beyond economic growth the paper presents a three dimensional concept to operationalise prosperity in terms of ecological sustainability social inclusion and the quality of life these dimensions are measured using data from sources such as the world bank the global footprint network and the oecd the results of cluster and correspondence analyses indicate the existence of five prosperity regimes and demonstrate that all aspects of prosperity including unsatisfactory ecological performance are linked to economic development however our findings also indicate that in order to achieve a decent minimum of prosperity moderate levels of the material living standard are sufficient further increases in the material living standard do not lead to significant additional prosperity instead they cause greater environmental harms the paper concludes by highlighting potentials for prosperity for each of the prosperity regimes and corresponding policy challenges

growth degrowth and climate change a scenario analysis article i nfo article history the paper proceeds with a discussion of the interplay of scale and intensity in determining greenhouse gas emissions this is followed by the presentation of several macroeconomic scenarios using lowgrow a simulation model of the canadian economy the scenarios considered are business as usual which is a projection into the future of past trends selective growth in which differential growth rates are applied to parts of the economy according to their direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions and degrowth where the average gdp capita of canadians is reduced towards a level more consistent with a world economy the size of which respects global environmental limits the paper ends with a comparison of the scenarios 2011 published by elsevier b v

the paradox of growth critique narrative analysis of the finnish sustainable consumption and production debate abstract academic discussion on economic growth and the environment has made a comeback under the auspices of the degrowth debate to date however literature on the topic has been mainly theoretical and empirical studies of actual policy discussions have received less attention this article contributes to the debate with a narrative policy analysis of interviews with members of finland s committee on sustainable consumption and production narrative policy analysis is suitable for complex policy cases by tracing and comparing the different stories non stories and counterstories in the debate the analysis clarifies the issue and paves the way for solutions we found that it is common even among business and ministry representatives to criticize the current growth bound economic system from the perspective of narrative policy analysis however this critique only increases uncertainty and complexity in the policy field which paradoxically leads to a strengthening of the dominant growth stories we suggest that constructing a complete degrowth story is essential for supporting democratic deliberation on sustainability robust institutional support for degrowth work together with research and experimentation are important milestones on the way

assessing the degrowth discourse a review and analysis of academic degrowth policy proposals abstract debates on ecological and social limits to economic growth and new ways to deal with resource scarcity without compromising human well being have re emerged in the last few years central to many of these is a call for a degrowth approach in this paper a framework is developed to support a systematic analysis of degrowth in the academic literature this article attempts to present a clearer notion of what the academic degrowth literature explores by identifying organising and analysing a set of proposals for action retrieved from a selection of articles the framework is applied to classify proposals according to their alignment to ecological economics policy objectives sustainable scale fair distribution and efficient allocation type of approach top down versus bottom up and geographical focus local national or international a total of 128 peer reviewed articles focused on degrowth were reviewed and 54 that include proposals for action were analysed the proposals identified align with three broad goals 1 reduce the environmental impact of human activities 2 redistribute income and wealth both within and between countries and 3 promote the transition from a materialistic to a convivial and participatory society the findings indicate that the majority of degrowth proposals are national top down approaches focusing on government as a major driver of change rather than local bottom up approaches as advocated by many degrowth proponents the most emphasised aspects in the degrowth literature are related to social equity closely followed by environmental sustainability topics such as population growth and the implications of degrowth for developing nations are largely neglected and represent an important area for future research moreover there is a need for a deeper analysis of how degrowth proposals would act in combination

population matters in ecological economics abstract it is an axiom of ecological economics that resource depletion and environmental pollution depend on the number of people and how many goods and services each consumes modified by the technological efficiency of production the paper reviews some studies quantifying the contribution of human numbers to environmental impact it warns against playing this factor off against that of high consumption in rich countries it asks whether from the environmental point of view complacency about either present or predicted population size is warranted the answer depends both on fertility and mortality assumptions and on constraints such as resource and food availability the concept of cultural carrying capacity would aid societies in determining their optimal population when account is taken not only of subsistence but of quality of life a population control toolkit for both rich and poor societies is sketched and some controversial coercive policy possibilities analysed

a review of limitations of gdp and alternative indices to monitor human wellbeing and to manage eco system functionality abstract the misuse of gross domestic product as a measure of public wellbeing results from the idea that economic growth is always synonymous with enhanced quality of life disregarding the fact that the economy profits from natural social and human capital in order to monitor progress towards sustainability and increased well being governments working closely with scientists developed new metrics that go further than income and material wealth there are several candidates for revisions of the gross domestic product based on a comprehensive literature review this paper identified several possible indicators that intend to adjust supplement or substitute for gross domestic product two main approaches were identified the first uses gross domestic product as foundation to build a complete index and includes proposals to greening gross domestic product socializing the indices and including it in a more comprehensive index the second approach relates to efforts to redefine the indicators with the use of environmentally oriented indicators and socially oriented measures challenges to measure development welfare and wellbeing are discussed to provide a wide angle view of efforts to develop measures of social economic ecological status and progress beyond the current very narrow gross domestic product it was recognized an urgent need for guidance for the development of governance regimes designed to change from short term decision making processes to those which support the multi decade planning and implementation processes that are needed to guide the transition to post fossil carbon societies this comprehensive review covers a wide range of topics from problems of gdp to challenges and thoughts about indicators the review shows that if mankind is concerned with the sustainable development of the planet as a whole then progress indicators measured only in monetary or social terms are limited and restricted to the weak or the medium sustainability model and must be complemented by biophysical indicators it is time to change the global knowledge of what progress really is changing the discussion from growth to sustainable development and human well being

does slow growth lead to rising inequality some theoretical reflections and numerical simulations this paper explores the hypothesis most notably made by french economist thomas piketty that slow growth rates lead to rising inequality if true this hypothesis would pose serious challenges to achieving prosperity without growth or meeting the ambitions of those who call for an intentional slowing down of growth on ecological grounds it would also create problems of social justice in the context of a secular stagnation the paper describes a closed demand driven stock flow consistent model of savings inequality and growth in a macroeconomic framework sigma with exogenous growth and savings rates sigma is used to examine the evolution of inequality in the context of declining economic growth contrary to the general hypothesis we find that inequality does not necessarily increase as growth slows down in fact there are certain conditions under which inequality can be reduced significantly or even eliminated entirely as growth declines the paper discusses the implications of this finding for questions of employment government fiscal policy and the politics of de growth

the identity of ecological economics retrospects and prospects the paper first reveals the relevance of ecological economics in the time of a triple crisis ecological social and economic and promotes it as a distinct paradigm comprised of two interconnected and interdependent aspects the qualitative framework within which it operates and the quantitative models and techniques it uses to observe ecosystem resilience measure progress towards sustainability and evaluate policies while acknowledging the progress that has so far been made the paper argues that divergences in understanding the meaning and content of ecological economics hinder its effectiveness and influence on real world policy making and calls for a unified framework as a common ground that would strengthen the field and direct research the implication of this position then follows pointing out what has so far been missing from the ecological economics analysis and what should be done for it to become a more problem oriented and policy relevant alternative copyright oxford university press

optimal versus sustainable degrowth policies abstract this paper introduces a natural resource and pollution in a ramsey growth model which relies on the postulates of ecological economics it studies the impact of voluntary degrowth policies on production and welfare the instrument of these policies is a tax on the natural resource these public policies are implemented after the downturn of the households welfare following from the increased pollution two kinds of policies are considered and rely either on an optimality criterion or on an intergenerational equity criterion with respect to the laissez faire case they decrease both production and pollution but increase welfare classes of sustainable degrowth paths characterized by time constant or time increasing tax rates are determined