• The problem: Chasing economic growth is incompatible with rapid reductions in environmental impacts.
  • Why it matters: This makes green growth, the most common strategy to address climate change and biodiversity loss, unlikely to succeed.
  • The solution: Degrowth makes it possible to improve human wellbeing within planetary boundaries.

Every year, the World Economic Forum releases a Global Risk Report. What do you think tops the 2023 list of the coming decade’s biggest risks?

Nuclear war? Global pandemics? Maybe artificial intelligence?

Not quite. The two risks that top the list are:

  1. Failure to mitigate climate change
  2. Failure to adapt to climate change

Add to that that five of the six biggest risks are categorised as “environmental risks”, and it’s clear why the combined climate and nature crises are considered the defining challenge for 21st century government.

💬 Let us know what you think by leaving a comment below

Efficiency and sufficiency

The task is easy to understand. Globally, we need to reduce environmental impacts in absolute terms. Simple as that. But it’s a complex challenge to solve, and one that requires bold action.

A common policy response in high-emitting countries has been to ditch ‘dirty growth’ for ‘green growth’, and try to decouple economic growth from its environmental impacts. The idea is this: improved efficiency will allow them to continue to grow their economies while reducing all environmental impacts at the same time.

Sustainable development requires rapid reductions in environmental impacts. But economic growth doesn’t allow for that. From this perspective, economic growth can be seen as a barrier to sustainable development in countries with high emissions and large ecological footprints.

A growing body of research suggests that decoupling alone just won’t cut it and won’t get us anywhere near the goals of the Paris Agreement. In other words: efficiency is good, but it must be complemented by sufficiency.

What then?

Now there’s a new kid in town. And the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) introduced them to global policymakers in their 6th Assessment Report.

In the report, the IPCC highlighted research that suggests degrowth, not decoupling, might be the most realistic pathway to stabilise temperatures below the Paris Agreement’s 2°C target and deliver social sustainability at the same time.

Since the world is on a tight carbon budget, the historically high emitters need to cut their emissions to leave space for the lowest emitters that need it to develop.

Degrowth asks a different question than green growth. Rather than focusing on economic growth, it asks: how can we decouple wellbeing from environmental impacts?

Consider this: if the aim of economic growth is to increase societal wellbeing, why not just aim for societal wellbeing in the first place? It sounds obvious. But this means that economic growth becomes just one of many possible ways to achieve wellbeing. In other words, degrowth makes economic growth a means to an end rather than the end itself.

Sustainable development requires rapid reductions in environmental impacts. But economic growth doesn’t allow for that. From this perspective, economic growth can be seen as a barrier to sustainable development in countries with high emissions and large ecological footprints.

The return of forgotten wisdom

Indigenous cultures have always known infinite growth is neither possible nor desirable. But they’re not the only ones. The political and economic thinkers that have helped shape the high-emitting Western economies would be baffled by their current dependency on growth.

Adam Smith, author of ‘The Wealth of Nations’, believed that a mature economy would stop growing, and that was a natural and healthy thing. John Maynard Keynes, by many considered the founder of modern macroeconomics, expected and hoped that we would all be working 15 hours a week by now. He’d have imagined the main challenge for people in 2030 would be figuring out how to spend all their leisure time — not struggling for subsistence or chasing particular growth rates (like Goal 8 of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals proposes.)

The story is the same when it comes to the way we measure growth. Robert F. Kennedy, former US Attorney General, famously said that “GDP measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile.”

The inventor of the GDP measure himself, Simon Kuznets, would’ve agreed. All the way back in 1934, he warned against using GDP as a measure of social progress, reminding us it doesn’t say much about “the welfare of a nation”.

This recently forgotten wisdom is now returning to our collective imagination.

Degrowth today

Thinking that challenges the growth paradigm is sprouting all across the world. In May, the European Parliament hosted a Beyond Growth Conference to discuss what a prosperous post-growth Europe can look like. Initiated by 20 Members of the European Parliament from across the political spectrum, with the support of 60 partner organisations, the conference sets a stage for conversation on a topic that’s undoubtedly going to shape European politics in the coming decades.

Cities like Amsterdam, Melbourne and Mexico City are using Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics to ensure social prosperity within planetary boundaries.

John Maynard Keynes was not the only one dreaming about a shorter working week, and studies, like this one from the UK, suggest that a 4-day working week is a realistic policy option. In a similar vein, the results of a two-year government-led experiment in Finland indicate that universal basic income can boost both employment and wellbeing.

The IPCC also highlights that prosperity is not “immutably tied to economic growth” and points toward ways of living that don’t depend on growth, such as eco-swaraj in India, ubuntu in South Africa and buen vivir, which was incorporated into the Bolivian constitution in 2009.

Many countries are also already exploring alternatives to GDP. Bhutan, New Zealand and Scotland have all made wellbeing and happiness measurable policy goals. However, while there are many candidates out there to replace or complement GDP — such as the Genuine Progress Indicator or the Social Progress Index — there’s still no clear winner.

These are just a few of many examples. Post-growth thinking is slowly but surely entering the mainstream and it’s there to stay.

Tomorrow’s thinking

Degrowth might still sound radical to some. But climate change and biodiversity loss mean there are no non-radical futures. Today, degrowth represents one of the most realistic routes to sustainable development for the historically high emitters.

That’s not to say it’ll be easy. Public servants like yourself know better than anyone that the challenges are complex. But as Finland’s former Minister of Education, Olli-Pekka Heinonen, writes, “the greatest danger in times of complexity is not the complexity itself — it is to act with yesterday’s thinking.”

Growthism can be considered yesterday’s thinking. And its indicator, GDP, is, in the words of Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the UN, a “harmful anachronism in global policymaking.”

Perhaps reducing our dependence on growth won’t lead us back to candlelit caves but show a way to a brighter future. What can such a post-growth future look like? That’s one of the big questions for 21st century governments to answer.

Done reading? Make sure to share your own tips by leaving a comment below ⬇️

(Image credit: Unsplash)