The climate science makes clear that endless economic growth on a finite planet is unsustainable. Human economic activity has already compromised several critical “planetary boundaries”, a measure of integrity of the systems that support life on Earth. This sobering indictment—that our economic activity has caused these breaches, and that more will follow unless we change course—begs two questions. Who’s on the hook to reduce human-caused impacts on biophysical systems such as water? And how best to do it?

The first question is a detailed topic in itself, requiring a dive into the physics of atmospheric heating and where the regional responsibility for the causes arises. I’ll devote a future post to that for the enthusiasts.

As to the second, what new economic approach is compatible with putting the Earth back into balance? This is where science meets economic ideology. There are two main theories under discussion, and which you prefer turns out to be highly correlated with where you sit on the political spectrum.

Your first contender is called Green Growth, and is championed by mainstream economists including Paul Krugman, and by political leaders everywhere. This view holds that economic growth can continue because of decoupling: novel technologies can help us to reduce material and energy demand per unit of production such that we can keep growing output while actually reducing planetary impacts. It’s a seductive mantra, lining up neatly with the long-standing business practice of reducing input costs using technology. We see firms cutting the virgin material content of their products, switching to renewable energy sources, and introducing less environmentally harmful products. All worthy efforts, but no challenge to business as usual. 

There’s a hand up in the back. Yes, Biogeophysics? ‘The problem is that per-unit decoupling, or relative decoupling, although a real enough effect, does not reduce total energy usage by enough to reverse atmospheric warming’, you say? It’s true, regrettably. Under Green Growth the economy keeps growing & the total harmful load on Earth’s systems keeps rising. Witness Emirates Airline’s proud reports of improving Fleet CO2 Efficiency on a per-mile basis (p61), when what the Earth experiences is the rising Total CO2 Emissions, driven by continued passenger growth (p62). I single out Emirates because they are among the most transparent of airlines with sustainability performance information. Others are of course still growing but reveal less, e.g., British Airways publishes fleet efficiency improvements but only ‘Net CO2 Emissions’ after carbon offsetting.

I’ll call the alternative Beyond Growth. Varieties are debated under labels including Degrowth and Post Growth, but they share a focus on absolute decoupling, prioritising reducing total environmental loads on the Earth’s systems. Degrowth scholars like Tim Parrique call for a (managed, orderly, sector-biased) contraction in world economic activity, in contrast to the disorderly nature of our seemingly frequent recessions. Post Growth economists including Tim Jackson advocate that we must first redefine capitalism from a growth agnostic perspective, reconceiving prosperity in non-financial terms, with health and care as core cherished outcomes. 

A Beyond Growth movement is gathering political will as well as academic heft, especially in the EU. For policymakers, the outlines of responsible action are fairly clear: universal basic services should be scaled up, green jobs prioritised, and certain sectors strongly incentivised through regulation and fiscal policy to abate or degrow.

But what about business? I think business needs to adopt Post Growth thinking, based on broad human-centered prosperity metrics, with urgency. For a business it requires clean-sheet thinking about purpose, aligning its mission with solving the climate emergency, dematerialising its business model, giving employees missional satisfaction as well as a wage, and operating in harmony with nature. The very measurement of its success must change.

This is what I will discuss in the next post: what for-profit companies can do to embrace a Post Growth future. I have some of my own research findings to share, and the outlines of a manifesto for long-term viability.