9 March 2023|Degrowth, Economic growth, post-growth
‘Green growth’ theory is interpreted as proposing that change in systems and technologies can be sufficient such that economic growth can proceed indefinitely into the future (Hao et al. 2021).
Environmental and social systems are already at critical thresholds globally, and some locally and regionally (Persson et al., 2022). Economic transitions to low or zero energy and materials economies are not proceeding rapidly enough for underlying environmental systems to be brought back from the brink, resulting in climate and ecological breakdowns (Pathak et al., 2022). This brings the ‘limits to growth’ more immediately into near-term view.
In the long run, as there are environmental and social limits to the metabolisation of materials and energy, by economic growth, indefinite growth would require a total decoupling of economic growth from materials and energy, to zero.
As it is not possible to have economic growth with zero energy and materials consumption, it is therefore not possible to have infinite economic growth. The option for growth and near-zero energy and materials consumption has been closed, by the ecological thresholds already crossed, and the slow pace of reversing these pressures.
However, this also prompts the more important question of how to decouple wellbeing from economic growth. We can live far better lives, individually, collectively and in relation to nature, by focussing on the more powerful and fundamental decoupling of wellbeing from economic growth (O’Mahony, 2022).
The continued focus on economic growth, rather than on growth and flourishing in human wellbeing, equity and nature, is to focus on the wrong thing, indirect on the means, rather than directly on the outcomes of interest (Stiglitz et al., 2009).
The assumption that economic growth can continue indefinitely is a manifestation of a dysfunction that arises in economics as a discipline. In economics, interpretation of evidence is seeking conformity to conventional theory, while in most science, equal weight is placed on both theory and data on actual outcomes (Hendry, 2018). While in the rest of science the theory must evolve, in economics the theory can continue regardless.
This partly explains the continuance of fallacious assumptions on indefinite growth, despite the empirical reality in the biosphere showing us otherwise.
Hao, L.-N., M. Umar, Z. Khan, and W. Ali, 2021: Green growth and low carbon emission in G7 countries: How critical the network of environmental taxes, renewable energy and human capital is? Sci. Total Environ., 752, 141853, doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141853.
Hendry, D.F., 2018: Deciding between alternative approaches in macroeconomics. International Journal of Forecasting, 34(1), pp.119-135.
Persson, L., Carney Almroth, B.M., Collins, C.D., Cornell, S., de Wit, C.A., Diamond, M.L., Fantke, P., Hassellöv, M., MacLeod, M., Ryberg, M.W. and Søgaard Jørgensen, P., 2022. Outside the safe operating space of the planetary boundary for novel entities. Environmental science & technology, 56(3), pp.1510-1521.
Pathak, R. Slade, P.R. Shukla, J. Skea, R. Pichs-Madruga, D. Ürge-Vorsatz,2022: Technical Summary. In: Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [P.R. Shukla, J. Skea, R. Slade, A. Al Khourdajie, R. van Diemen, D. McCollum, M. Pathak, S. Some, P. Vyas, R. Fradera, M. Belkacemi, A. Hasija, G. Lisboa, S. Luz, J. Malley, (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA. doi: 10.1017/9781009157926.002.
Stiglitz, J. E., Sen, A., and Fitoussi, J. P. (2009). Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress. Paris: Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress.
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Dr Tadhg O'Mahony 
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