Degrowth – Taking Stock and Reviewing an Emerging Academic Paradigm

Abstract

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.

Eco‐innovation and firm growth in the circular economy: Evidence from European small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises

“…The latter argues that further growth cannot be achieved sustainably given the existing resource and carbon limitations our planet is facing (Weiss & Cattaneo, 2017). trade-off between economic growth and environmental conservation at the firm level can be resolved through EI such as cleaner production and eco-design of products (Beckmann, Hielscher, & Pies, 2014;Doran & Ryan, 2016;Jové-Llopis & Segarra-Blasco, 2018b, among others).…”

The accelerated infectious disease risk in the Anthropocene: more outbreaks and wider global spread

“…(3) The most sustainable scenario is, however, to decrease or even reverse global mobility rates of humans and other carriers and vectors, especially if it is part and parcel of a much larger movement towards global sustainability by reducing humanity's environmental footprint and replacing unsustainable economic growth with sustainable economic degrowth (Schneider et al, 2010;Daly and Farley, 2011;Alexander, 2012;Czech, 2013;Galaz, 2014;Cosme et al, 2017;Weiss and Cattaneo, 2017;Chiengkul, 2018;Sandberg et al, 2019;Schmid, 2019). Such a general, comprehensive and global slowdown of mobility of both uninfected and infected people and vectors would be opposed for many reasons and by many interest groups, mainly based on economic arguments based around the need for continuous economic growth which has so far almost always been positively linked with increased mobility (e.g., Arvin et al, 2015;Hakim and Merkert, 2016;UNWTO, 2017;Saidi et al, 2018;Nasreen et al, 2020).…”

Lessons for blue degrowth from Namibia’s emerging blue economy

“…While the blue economy professes to offer an environmentally sustainable approach to growth, the degrowth agenda proposes different normative ideals. Those subscribing to the degrowth agenda argue that, by situating growth in a position central to socio-economic policies, these very policies will result in economic decline due to the finite nature of the Earth (Weiss and Cattaneo 2017). As Sandberg et al (2019) discuss in relation to green growth, the blue economy is unlikely to slow or reverse environmental degradation.…”