Degrowth: are you ready for the sustainability buzzword of 2024?

Let me predict that “degrowth” will be one of the growing buzzwords of the next 24 months. While I can’t imagine it will become mainstream in terms of an accepted way forward it will force some important discussions.

“Degrowth” is not even recognised yet by the spell-checker but I’m certain it will be increasingly discussed in the months to come and will be a mainstream topic in 2024.

This article is a brief start-point to help get you thinking and sharing the term and its concepts with as large an audience as possible. Let’s get the discussion going.

What is it?

Degrowth is basically a socio-economic theory and movement that challenges the traditional notion of unlimited economic growth as the ultimate goal of society. It says this is not sustainable on a planet with finite resources. As a result, it implicitly calls for a deliberate reduction in economic activity and resource consumption. Thus things become sustainable and (ideally) socially just. By definition it requires a re-evaluation of our values, priorities, and systems in order to ensure planetary — and thus human — well-being and ecological resilience.

It crashes headlong into capitalism which requires continuing growth of consumption (and thus production and resource utilisation) to support growing standards of living (where standard of living is measured primarily from a financial point of view). As such people often call degrowth advocates anti-capitalists. While this is technically correct, the point is not that it is anti-capitalist on principle but because by definition a degrowth agenda can not happen on an inherently capitalist-driven planet

Degrowth emphasizes the need for a qualitative transformation of the economy, focusing on well-being, social justice, and ecological sustainability rather than purely increasing the production and consumption of goods and services. It challenges our dominant economic model of constant GDP growth, as it argues that this perpetuates inequality, undermines social cohesion, and places unsustainable pressure on natural resources (as is being increasingly noted in people’s everyday lives).

For a degrowth agenda to have any chance of working it needs to happen in a slow, well-managed way, but it is easy for critics to make it sound like advocates want to apply it immediately which would of course result in economic stagnation, job losses, and decreased living standards. At the heart of any chance of success needs to be mutual agreement on new definitions of progress and success that balance health, happiness and well-being with material possessions and experiences.

The degrowth discussion is a critical one to have as many of the points it makes can and should be considered and applied even if there is no traction for a fundamental move away from our current growth-focused capitalism model.

What to do next

To start understanding degrowth better, you can take several steps:

Education – there are a growing number of books and articles, many very well written.

Events and discussion – there are also an increasing number of events to speak with people. This aren’t full of obsessive advocates (though there can be some) but people who really want to debate the principles and the practicalities

Engage friends and colleagues – new, complex topics can really benefit from starting as light “coffee conversations” as everyone gets their head around the ideas and nomenclature

Understand what it means practically – while a global switch to degrowth will likely never happen – or be a panicky response to currently unimaginable social pressures, the concept of thinking how we can act in a more degrowth manner ourselves is a valuable exercise

Explore the range of alternative economic models: Simply saying Capitalism v Degrowth is too simplistic. Things need to be more nuanced. Consider all alternative economic frameworks that challenge growth-based capitalism, such as steady-state economics, ecological economics, and post-growth theories.

Advocate for change? While most people will want to avoid being seen as “anti-capitalist” pushing some of the degrowth principles at work and in the local community will likely get good reactions