Library

By: Anna Pringle

This blog post analyzes press coverage of degrowth in Western European (English language) newspapers and magazines between January 2015 and October 2020.  Using media theory concepts such as agenda setting and framing, it explores how degrowth is being considered in the press, particularly as a potential response to climate change.

By: Geoffrey Garver

Reconciling degrowth and law isn’t always easy, given the anarchist underpinnings and anti-statist leanings of some in the degrowth community.  One vision of a degrowth world is of decentralized, autonomous, convivial communities of people in tune with their supporting ecosystems, consuming no more than they need, sharing as much as possible and treating each other with compassion, fairness and...

By: Lateef Salami

On October 1, 1960, as Nigeria gained independence, the population of the entire country was around 45.1 million. Fast forward to the year 2020, according to U.N, the estimated population of Nigeria is above 206 million. This can be seen as a rapidly exploding population when compared to other nations in Europe like UK (52.2 million in 1960 to 67.9million in year 2020) over the same period of t...

By: Sonja Hennen

GDP is a flawed guide to prosperity. What else should we measure if we want to do better? “The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income”. Those were the words of Simon Kuznets, who developed the first national income accounts in the United States. And yet, we look back on decades of appropriating GDP as a measure of social welfare and progress. With t...

By: Gabriela Cabaña, Diego Arahuetés, Mariana Calcagni, María Paz Aedo, CASA - Centro de Análisis Socioambiental

What does degrowth mean in the Latin American context? In 2020, a series of six self-organized encounters attempted to dive into this question. Each meeting reflected the metaphor of the agricultural process: from sowing to harvesting. Among the conclusions was a unanimous desire to put into practice ‘other ways of inhabiting the world’, valuing the knowledge of the original peoples and inhabit...

By: Corinna Dengler, Giacomo D'Alisa

The third annual Global Degrowth Day on the theme of care will take place on 5th June 2021. Here, Corinna Dengler and Giacomo D’Alisa expand on the centrality of care to degrowth.

By: Corinna Dengler, Giacomo D'Alisa

The third annual Global Degrowth Day on the theme of care will take place on 5th June 2021. Here, Corinna Dengler and Giacomo D'Alisa expand on the centrality of care to degrowth. Degrowth is an activist and political claim supported by academic research that aims at creating global human well-being within planetary boundaries. Degrowth problematizes interlinking systems of domination ...

By: Sonja Hennen

As the current default indicator for economic and social ‘progress’, GDP is the most broadly established measure of a country’s economic performance relative to that of other countries. Conceived as a tool to measure economic quantity, GDP is widely used to assess economic quality, although it ignores a range of vital economic activities, most notably care work. On top of that, the race for GDP growth has dire consequences for the social fabric of societies and increases pressure on the earth’s ecosystems. Is it adequate then to argue that GDP-centeredness perpetuates interdependent systems of disadvantages and injustices?

By: Federico Savini

Abstract: Over the last decade, degrowth has offered a concrete alternative to eco-modernization, projecting a society emancipated from the environmentally destructive imperative of competition and consumption. Urban development is the motor of economic growth; cities are therefore prime sites of intervention for degrowth activists. Nevertheless, the planning processes that drive urban develop...

By: Wendy Harcourt

As we look back on 2020 we see how Covid-19 has made it starkly clear to all of us that globally something is deeply, systemically wrong. As Arundhati Roy stated a portal has opened that demands we change our lives. Those of us cocooned at home working on zoomland, or those of us struggling with

By: Tone Smith, Jagoda Munić, Aurore Lalucq, Pawel Wargan

Panel discussion We will discuss what’s currently happening on EU level regarding “greening the economy” (mainly within the European Green Deal frame). Taking into account literature dealing with EU and national policies in the context of degrowth we want to make the practical challenges of navigating the realities of the European political system transparent. With this consecutive session w...

By: Elisabetta Mocca, Kristina Eisfeld, Michael Friesenecker, Veronika Kulmer, Sebastian Seebauer

Workshop How can integrated housing policy achieve decarbonisation while enabling fair access to housing? We invite policy-makers, activists, researchers, and others to take part in an interactive discussion. After short introductions reporting the research underpinning the workshop, participants will join sub-groups on: fair carbon taxes, retrofitting rented housing, and awareness building ...

By: Matthias Haberl, Isabella Szukits

Workshop Südwind works since many years about the supply chain of mobile phones. Current initiatives range from modular design over certain procurement strategies of public institutions to refurbishment and proper recycling. Still on local and regional levels many small initiatives can do and are doing interesting steps in the right direction and we want together to elaborate more on it. And...

By: Jefim Vogel

Presentation [part of the standard session "Resources and Energy"] Paris obligations make the inevitability of consumption reductions for affluent societies undeniable if we combine 3 non-radical demands: 1) equal per-capita allocation of the global carbon budget, 2) accounting for carbon footprints of imports/exports, 3) non-reliance on yet unproven technologies. Presenters: Jefim Vogel ...

By: Ida Day, Jefim Vogel, Don Blair

Standard session (discussion following 3 presentations) The Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition – Strategies for Social-Ecological Transformation My presentation focuses on strategies toward social-ecological transformation, undertaken by The Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC) in West Virginia, to protect the mountain ecosystems and culture of Central Appalachia. OVEC has successf...

By: Tilman Hartley, Mark Perera, Ajda Pitotnik

Workshop The idea of the workshop Let’s Talk: Debt Meets Degrowth is to bring closer together two interlinked (international) communities, one working on debt and the other on degrowth, that share the same policy agenda, but had not had many opportunities to advance their common strategic debates. Many conferences and debates on debt or degrowth have taken place, but without sufficient commu...

By: Max Koch, Emanuele Leonardi, Giorgos Velegrakis, Stefania Barca, Mabrouka Mbarek

Special session “Cities of Dignity” presents seven successful strategies of such urban transformation toward more democratic, sustainable, socially equitable and antipatriarchal relations from below in a series of case studies: the self-determination and organization of slum dwellers in Buhj in India; Black-led urban commons in Birmingham, Jackson, and Detroit in the U.S.; the San Roque popu...

By: Markus Wissen, Melanie Pichler, Nora Krenmayr

Workshop In this Special Session, results of the CON-LABOUR research project will be presented, which during more than two years explored the opportunities and challenges of a social-ecological transformation in the Austrian automotive industry from the perspective of employees and their representations. We provide insight into the political economy of Austrian supplier industry and reflect ...

By: The Global Degrowth Day Team

In this announcement, the Global Degrowth Day organising team talk through the selection of care as the theme for the 2021 edition of the event.

By: Gibran Vita

Presentation [Part of the standard session "Practicing Degrowth"] The present work aims to contribute in three major ways- 1) By connecting fundamental human needs by Max-Neef et al to global carbon emissions and their satisfaction. 2) By employing an Environmentally Extended MultiRegional Input-Output (EE-MRIO) to assess the outcomes of massive consumption-related lifestyles changes envisio...