DeGrowth Breaking Into the Mainstream? (Nice Try)

Marcus Feldthus, “Exploring how to align business with the planetary boundaries. Sharing what I learn along the way at Post Growth Guide, claims that “Degrowth is breaking into the mainstream.”

Covered by: UN, Harvard Business Review, NY Times, Ernst & Young, BBC, and Bloomberg Festival as something to be explored, not ridiculed.

Here is a quote from each

Bloomberg Festival: Ted Talk by Gaya Herrington

“Our choice is not whether to keep growing or not. But whether the end of growth is coming by design or disaster. Either we choose limits or have them forced upon us.”

Harvard Business Review: In Defense of Degrowth

“The core of the degrowth argument is the historical fact that economic growth and emissions are inexorably connected (…) To be realistic about the fundamental challenges of growth, we must adjust our cultural assumptions and reconfigure unsustainable business models.”

UN Rapporteur, Olivier De Schutter: Eradicating poverty beyond growth

“The transition to a post-growth development trajectory, focused on the realization of human rights rather than on an increase in the aggregate levels of production and consumption, should be explicitly mentioned in A Pact for the Future”

New York Times: Shrink the Economy, Save the World?

“Less than two decades ago, an economist like Herman Daly, who argued for a “steady-state economy,” was such an outlier that his fellow economist Benjamin Friedman could declare that “practically nobody opposes economic growth per se.” Yet today there is a burgeoning “post-growth” and “degrowth” movement doing exactly that — in journals, on podcasts, at conferences.”

Ernst & Young: A new economy

“Seemingly organized under many different frameworks (e.g., Doughnut Economics, Beyond GDP, ecological economics, degrowth and regenerative economics), these concepts share the common vision of an economy founded on human and planetary flourishing. We suggest they also point to five guiding principles foundational to accelerating the transition toward this goal.”

BBC: Less is more: Can Degrowth Save The World? by Alvaro Alvarez Ricciardelli

“A group of academics and activists are questioning the possibility of endless economic growth on a finite planet. They instead advocate for a bold solution: degrowth.”

These highlights also show that we have a long way to go.

First, these highlights are from Western Media only.
Second, they are grounded in a Western Perspective.

For the Degrowth/Post Growth to deliver on its promises of wellbeing for all, it needs to incorporate the perspectives and insights of the Global Majority.

I didn’t even see this post’s Western bias at first. Thank you to Gillian Marcelle for pointing it out to me.

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PS. If you want to understand what this shift means for businesses, I’ve made a beginner’s online course: Post Growth Business 101.

And there is actually a whole chapter (Lesson 10) dedicated to me exposing the errors I have made because of my Western bias, my process for trying to overcome it and recommendations for where to look for global majority insights (I have put links in the comment).

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