Degrowth, a concrete alternative to a sick system
Nothing grows forever; how degrowth offers a real path, beyond utopia, to guarantee a fair and sustainable future outside capitalist logics.
by Michela Grasso
Every year, Earth Overshoot Day marks the date on which humanity exhausts all the biological and natural renewable resources available over the course of an entire year. From the following day onward, we live in an “ecological debt”, consuming resources that don’t actually exist. Year after year, Earth Overshoot Day falls earlier and earlier in the calendar, moving from December 12 in 1975 to July 30 in 2026.
Such figures should confront us with the unsustainability of our lifestyles and our economic model, based on limitless consumption and production. And it comes as natural to look favorably upon solutions that resurface periodically in the public debate, without ever having been seriously considered:
reducing emissions by eliminating private jets, cutting food, personal and industrial waste, and social measures such as reducing working hours.
One of the reasons these proposals struggle to translate into concrete policies lies in a structural obstacle: what several economists define as the “growth imperative”, meaning the tendency to measure the success of our societies almost exclusively through the constant increase in production and consumption. Every year we must consume and produce more, both at state and private enterprise level.
The good news?
Alternatives to this obsession with growth do exist. In recent years, a vast field of research has blossomed, exploring policies and economic models inspired by degrowth, post-growth, and forms of economy beyond capitalism.
Degrowth, in this context, is the theoretical, economic and political proposal arguing for the necessity of reducing production and consumption in a controlled way, with the aim of improving human and ecological wellbeing.
Talking about degrowth; what, how and why?
In a world where “growth” is a constant mantra on the lips of politicians and economists, the idea of de-growing seems like sacrilege. In Italy, the term has historically been associated with the “happy degrowth” of Serge Latouche, adopted and then tossed aside by the Five Star Movement as an electoral slogan. Today the word evokes for many a vague utopia, almost a political joke.
And yet in recent years, a growing number of researchers from around the world, coming from different disciplines, have been working to imagine an economy and a society capable of existing outside the paradigm of infinite growth. Their focus is understanding how to live within the natural limits of the Earth, distributing available resources equitably. Institutes and research centers dedicated to understanding degrowth have emerged, and for this article, Voice Over Foundation interviewed Suryadeepto Nag, development economist at the University of Lausanne, and Donatella Gasparro, researcher in political ecology at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and co-founder of the Numega Collective.
«Billionaires and politicians tell us to chase the myth of growth, claiming it will improve our lives», explains Nag,
«instead of offering us basic services and jobs, we are told that all the world’s problems, from environmental degradation to poverty, will be solved if we keep growing, investing and earning. There are even those who argue that only by growing economically can a country achieve gender equality or develop sustainable energy.
And yet we have been growing non-stop for centuries and we never have enough, not even to guarantee a dignified life for half of the world.»
In the current system, everything is justified in the name of GDP growth and economic indicators: producing thousands of SUVs, razing a forest to the ground, building houses destined to remain empty, and even using irreplaceable resources to create millions of Labubus already headed straight for the nearest landfill.
«Degrowth is divided into two parts», adds Nag, «the first is de-centering the myth of infinite growth, explaining that we have been sold a lie. The second is recognizing the finiteness of natural resources. The question to answer then becomes: how can we address poverty and social problems while staying within these limits?»
As Nag points out, «you can’t grow forever», and this can be seen also in the natural world: « everything has a limit to its growth, trees, people, animals, and unrestricted growth leads to diseases rather than well-being. What arrogance do we parade, then, in demanding an infinite economy in a world that finds its equilibrium in finiteness?»
One of the most common criticisms to degrowth sees it as an unrealizable utopia, a dream of the few. In reality degrowth is already practiced daily, even in many parts of Italy.
Donatella Gasparro explains: «Elements of economies traceable to degrowth exist today in many rural areas and “inner areas” of Italy. Peasant farming, gift economies, daily practices of recycling and reuse, and the care and stewardship of territory persisting in the Italian countryside are not remnants of the past, but the beginning of different way of being in the world, tied to the land and to reciprocity, and not dependent on the market and economic growth.
These examples of “real degrowth” should not be understood as a nostalgic return to a past that never existed, but as concrete starting points from which to re-localize the economy, though they must necessarily go hand in hand with public policies.»
The existence of shared oil presses and communal ovens, shared moments for animal slaughter, the exchange of food and the repair of clothes and agricultural tools, are political acts in contemporary Italy, where people are led to believe that buying, producing and consuming endlessly are prerequisites for a successful life.
The myth of “decoupling”
Growth advocates champion the idea of “decoupling”, meaning the separation between economic growth and environmental impact, to assert the feasibility of a capitalist ecological revolution. The idea is that thanks to technological advancement, particularly in the production of sustainable energy, we can continue to grow while reducing emissions.
The problem, explains Suryadeepto, is how this reasoning doesn’t go beyond emissions. «If instead of looking at CO2 reduction alone we looked at the footprint and availability of raw materials, the picture would be very different. Efficiency improves over time, yes, but not fast enough to prevent ecological collapse. How much steel and how many rare minerals would be needed to build the wind turbines and solar panels capable of sustaining all our consumption? How many emissions would be released in the extraction and transportation processes?
This doesn’t mean being against renewables, quite the opposite, they are necessary. But we must stop believing they can be enough on their own, without a change in the system.»
The idea at the heart of the so-called “green growth”, which envisions continuous growth without emissions, is to keep existing within a capitalist system. Thinking we could bring 8 or 10 billion people to a standard of living equivalent to that of Europe, with the same consumption and waste, would be ecologically devastating, even if we only relied on renewables.
«The logic is simple», concludes Nag, «growth makes sense for those who are poor, for those who need an economic improvement in their lives, and to achieve that they need to increase their consumption. This includes an overwhelming majority of the people in the Global South, and some people even in the Global North, but does not include billionnaires or sections where consumption levels are well-above what is sufficient and sustainable. By introducing a limit to the natural resources used by our economies, the obvious conclusion is that it is the rich who must reduce their consumption, to improve the lives of the poorest, without destroying the planet.»
Educating toward new paradigms
But if degrowth offers convincing answers to the problems of our time, why is it still unknown to most people? Perhaps the answer must be sought in the educational system and in which teachings are privileged within universities.
Timothée Parrique, a French economist, has been criticizing the economic educational system for more than a decade.
His main objections are three: curricula concentrate on neoclassical theories presenting them as universal; ecological limits are not discussed, treating resources as infinite externalities; and there is an over-mathematization of abstract models, disconnecting students from the real consequences of economic activities.
«Critical social sciences remain very marginal, even in Italy», explains Donatella Gasparro, «in sustainability programmes the dominant idea is to reconcile growth and biodiversity through the Sustainable Development Goals. But, speaking with students across Italy, one can sense a great hunger for politics; at university there are two or three people who teach it, often in optional courses not even known to students.»
«The structural problem», she adds, «is transdisciplinarity. Degrowth and political ecology bring together economics, environmental sciences, critical sociology, political science and agricultural economics, but universities are organized in watertight compartments, making it impossible to create a constructive dialogue that could lead to knowledge of and interaction with more radical ideas.
If I could rewrite a course in political economy, I would start from two words: materiality and democracy. Materiality because the economy is not abstract but made of resources, energy, water, land; and the way in which we use these resources to satisfy our needs determines the future of this planet. And democracy, because the economy is a question of who decides what is produced, where, how, at what cost and for whose benefit.»
Donatella Gasparro works concretely on creating educational programmes in economics: she is part of the scientific committee of the Londa School of Economics School, a school in rural Tuscany, with the aim of bringing new economic models starting from inner and marginal areas. The website reads: «Because inner areas can become laboratories of innovation, where the economy does not consume but regenerates, building a fairer, more sustainable and desirable future for all.»
Donatella is also part of the Quaderni della Decrescita collective, a magazine of ecology, society and politics. A shared awareness on degrowth must be built both inside and outside academic settings, stimulating research while at the same time making it accessible to everyone. Changing the way we teach economics is not merely an academic matter, but a question of power: whoever defines university curricula also defines the problems and the solutions, and which alternatives may be made visible or invisible to the economists of the future.
Toward a different future
«Degrowth has recently become a word of common use and it is useful because it points us toward the trajectory of the problem», explains Suryadeepto, «but the real problem is not growth itself, it is capitalism and inequality. This global capitalist system makes the rich richer, the poor poorer, workers insecure, and exploits both natural resources and human labor. Once degrowth is accepted as a paradigm for not destroying the planet, the first and most important system to dismantle is capitalism.»
Suryadeepto and Donatella are both part of REAL, a project of the European Research Council that brings together dozens of researchers with the aim of studying the policies and systems necessary for a post-growth world, capable of guaranteeing the wellbeing of all within planetary limits. Their work contributes to making imaginable, and perhaps achievable, a different world: one in which July 30 does not mark the beginning of an annual ecological debt to our planet, but simply another summer day.
