Library

By: Sarah Hafner, Aled Jones, Annela Anger-Kraavi, Jan Pohl

Meeting its climate policy objectives requires the UK to rapidly decarbonise its energy sector. This demands high levels of investments into low carbon energy infrastructure, which are currently not undertaken at required scale, leading to a green finance gap. We explore (1) key investment barriers, (2) a theoretical framework for investigation and (3) possible solutions, drawing on a review of...

By: Matthias Schmelzer, Iris Frey, Andro Rilović, Stefania Barca, Eeva Houtbeckers

Panel debate The aim of this panel is to evaluate and discuss degrowth and it’s strategies in direct relation to the current corona crisis. We want to understand how the degrowth community responded so far to the crisis and how degrowth was and is present in recent discussions. The goal is then to identify potential pathways, but also barriers, for bringing forward the degrowth agenda in thi...

By: Alicia Said, Douglas MacMillan

The era of blue growth, underpinned by neoliberal policy discourses, has been pervasive in the promulgation of European marine governance and policies in the past decade, with little or no regard for the sustainability of small-scale fisheries. In this paper, we engage with theoretical and empirical observations to reflect on how the promise of sustainable economic growth arising from the c...

By: Rosanna Carver

Globally there has been recognition that there is little consensus attributed to the definition of the blue economy. However, despite this acknowledgement, the blue economy is championed for its development potential by the African Union and subsequently, several African states. Having formalised the agenda in its fifth National Development Plan Namibia is working to implement a governance ...

By: Peter Newell, Olivia Taylor

With fires, storms, social protests, and climate strikes sweeping the world, 2019 should have been a tipping point in how the world responds to global heating. This was the backdrop to the COP25 climate change summit which took place in Madrid in December 2019. This paper assesses the outcomes of the meeting and the path towards the critically important meeting in Glasgow at the end of 2020...

By: David Harvey

In this episode, Prof. Harvey talks about the factors and conditions that enables COVID-19 to become a pandemic and the ramifications for the economy and for social life.

By: Katharina Bohnenberger

While the social consequences of environmental policies are extensively evaluated in sustainability research, few studies exist on the ecological impact of social benefits and the welfare state. Sustainable welfare is a novel research field that seeks to close this knowledge gap and develop integrated eco-social policies. Within this, researchers are starting to ask how citizen’s needs can be g...

By: Jonathan Barth

Presentation [part of the standard session "Institutional Change 2"] The session introduces an online toolbox to guide policy-making beyond growth. Based on a literature review, we structure post-growth policies along 17 objectives, 101 transformative changes and 260 instruments. The framework shows what means other than economic growth can achieve political ends. Presenters: Jonathan Bar...

By: Simone D'Alessandro, Kristofer Dittmer, André Cieplinski, Tiziano Distefano

Climate change and increasing income inequality have emerged as twin threats to contemporary standards of living, peace and democracy. These two problems are usually tackled separately in the policy agenda. A new breed of radical proposals have been advanced to manage a fair low-carbon transition. In this spirit, we develop a dynamic macrosimulation model to investigate the long-term effect...

By: I. Ertör, M. Hadjimichael

Editorial to the Special Issue in Sustainability Science (15, 2020)

By: Joël Foramitti

Technologische Wunschträume und die Fixierung auf ewiges Wachstum verhindern seit Jahrzehnten eine effektive Klimapolitik

By: Jana Brandl, Irina Zielinska

In the face of an increasing awareness of environmental issues and the urgent need to tackle them without shifting the burden onto the most vulnerable social groups, calls for a socio-economic transformation are growing louder. However, there is no consensus on what transformative strategies should look like. Within the German-language literature one can broadly distinguish two transformative p...

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: 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: Akshat Rathi

"In recent years, a group of economists, ecologists, and anthropologists has gained attention for trying to overturn a core tenet of economic policy — that growth is good for everyone. Known as the “degrowth” movement, these scholars suggest a reframing of humanity’s goals along ecological lines to address the climate crisis, along with a reconsideration of using gross domestic product as a met...

By: Maša Hawlina, Asja Hrvatin, Nicoleta Nour, Sara Pistotnik, Lana Zdravković, Ajda Pistotnik

Special session Bursting Platform is bringing under a spotlight feminization of politics and exploration of possibilities of co-creating and opening a new political space – a platform for building stronger connections between various initiatives, places, women activists covering diverse, but relevant topics that bring into effect needed new alliances. Five themes will be presented by five ac...

By: Diego Andreucci, Gustavo García López

The Green New Deal has become a central focus of debates around ecosocialist politics; this list brings together diverse resources to foster critical reflection on its potential and limitations.

By: Joseph E. Stiglitz

The public-health effects and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in developing and emerging economies are only just becoming apparent, but it is already clear that the toll will be devastating. If the international community wants to avoid a wave of defaults, it must start developing a rescue plan immediately.

By: Sheelah Kolhatkar

One of the risks of not providing an universal Health Care system is not just related to the threat  represented to life itself. Debt and despair can be easily taken advantage of and the article encloses how this dispossession process of hospital patients is all possible in the current financial system and kept legal by the same government.

By: Iago Otero, Katharine N. Farrell, Salvador Pueyo, Giorgos Kallis, Laura Kehoe, Helmut Haberl, Christoph Plutzar, Peter Hobson, Jaime García‐Márquez, Beatriz Rodríguez‐Labajos, Jean‐Louis Martin, Karl‐Heinz Erb, Stefan Schindler, Jonas Nielsen, Teuta Skorin, Josef Settele, Franz Essl, Erik Gómez‐Baggethun, Lluís Brotons, Wolfgang Rabitsch, François Schneider, Guy Pe'er

Increasing evidence—synthesized in this paper—shows that economic growth contributes to biodiversity loss via greater resource consumption and higher emissions. Nonetheless, a review of international biodiversity and sustainability policies shows that the majority advocate economic growth. Since improvements in resource use efficiency have so far not allowed for absolute global reductions i...