Abstract
The UN publication Our Common Future was a seminal report that marked a time in history when development and the environment enjoyed increasing awareness and attention. Development and environment do not go along with each other quickly. To this day, the tension between the two is still there. The concept of sustainable development—meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs—was thought to be the key to a durable match between development and the environment. By 1987, it was a new perspective by establishing equity and justice between generations and developing a shared understanding of the long-term goals of human life on earth. From there, Our Common Future pleaded for new international governance instruments and action programmes. There was a need for leadership and mutual trust to reach this goal. The subsequent Rio Conferences are a direct result of the suggestion of Our Common Future to have an international conference to address these issues.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
See also Chap. 8 on eco-efficiency.
- 2.
https://acehub.org.au/news/degrowth-critiques-of-the-circular-economy [accessed 30 April 2023].
- 3.
References
Anderson, M. (2012). Economics, steady state. In Birkshire Encyclopedia of sustainability (Vol. 10, pp. 78–85). Birkshire Publishing Group.
Asara, V., Profumi, E., & Kallis, G. (2013). Degrowth, democracy and autonomy. Environmental Values, 22(2), 217–239.
Ayres, R. U., van den Bergh, J. C. J. M., & Gowdy, J. M. (1998). Viewpoint: Weak versus strong sustainability (Discussion Papers, No. 98–103/2). Tinbergen Institute.
Barry, J. (2005). Ecological modernisation. In J. S. Dryzek & D. Schlosberg (Eds.), Debating the earth. The environmental politics reader (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
Bauwens, T., Hekkert, M., & Kirchher, J. (2020). Circular futures: What will they look like? Ecological Economics, 175(106), 703.
Berkhout, F. (2014). Sustainable innovation management. In M. Dodgson, D. Gann, & N. Phillips (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of innovation management (pp. 290–315). Oxford University Press.
Berr, E. (2015). Sustainable development in a post-Keynesian perspective: Why eco-development is relevant to post Keynesian economics. Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, 37(4), 459–480.
Brander, J. A. (2007). Viewpoint: Sustainability: Malthus revisited? Canadian Journal of Economics, 40(1), 1–38.
Braungart, M., & McDonough, W. (2002). Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the way we make things (1st ed.). North Point Press.
Brown, E., Cloke, J., Gent, D., & Hill, D. (2014). Green growth or ecological commodification: Debating the green economy in the global south. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, 93(3), 245–259.
Caiado, R. G. G., Freitas Dias, R., Mattos, L. V., Quelhas, O. L. G., & Leal Filho, W. (2017). Towards sustainable development through the perspective of eco-efficiency - A systematic literature review. Journal of Cleaner Production, 165, 890–899.
Change, G. (2010). China and the credit crisis. The emergence of a new world order. John Wiley and Sons (Asia) Pte. Ltd..
Cohen, M. (1998). Science and environment: Assessing cultural capacity for ecological modernization. Public Understanding of Science, 7, 149–167.
Collier, P. (2010a). Opportunities and challenges for the inclusion of the Bottom Billion, Keynote Lecture, Conference Our Common Future, Hannover, 3 November 2010.
Collier, P. (2010b). The plundered planet: How to reconcile prosperity with nature. Penguin.
D′ Alisa, G., & Kallis, G. (2020). Degrowth and the state. Ecological Economics, 169, 1–9.
Demaria, F., Schneider, F., Sekulova, F., & Martinez-Alier, J. (2013). What is degrowth? From an activist slogan to a social movement. Environmental Values, 22(2), 191–215.
Dietz, T., & Rosa, E. A. (1994). Rethinking the environmental impacts of population, affluence and technology. Human Ecology Review, 1, 277–300.
Ehrenfeld, J. R. (2005). Eco-efficiency. Philosophy, theory, and tools. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 9(4), 6–8.
FAO. (2010). Climate-smart agriculture. Policies, practices and finances for food security, adaptation and mitigation.
Forestier, O., & Kim, R. E. (2020). Cherry-picking the sustainable development goals: Goal prioritization by national governments and implications for global governance. Sustainable Development, 28, 1269–1278.
Froese, T., Richter, M., Hofmann, F., & Lüdeke-Freund, F. (2023, May). Degrowth-oriented organizational value creation: A systematic literature review of case studies. Ecological Economics, 207.
Frye-Levine, L. A. (2012). Sustainability through design science: Re-imagining option spaces beyond eco-efficiency. Sustainable Development, 20, 166–179.
Georgescu-Roegen, S. (1975). Energy and economic myths. Southern Economic Journal, 41(3), 347–381.
Gladwin, T. N., Krause, T.-S., & Kennelly. (1995). Beyond eco-efficiency: Towards socially sustainable business. Sustainable Development, 3, 35–43.
Goleman, D. (2010). How market forces can build a greener world. www.danielgoleman.info. 20 August 2010.
Hardt, L., & O’Neill. (2017). Ecological macroeconomics models: assessing current developments. Ecological Economics, 134, 198–211.
Hauff, V. (2007). Brundtland report. A 20 years update. Keynote speech European Sustainability, Berlin 2007 (ESB07) ‘Linking Policies, Implementation, and Civil Society Action’, Berlin, June 3–5, 2007.
Hausknost, D. (2017). Degrowth and democracy. In C. L. Spash (Ed.), Routledge handbook of ecological economics. Nature and society. Routledge.
Hickel, J. (2019). The contradiction of the sustainable development goals: Growth versus ecology on a finite planet. Sustainable Development, 27, 873–884.
Hoffrén, J., & Apajalahti, E.-L. (2009). Emergent efficiency paradigm in corporate environment management. Sustainable Development, 17, 233–243.
Hopwood, B., Mellor, M., & O’Brien, G. (2005). Sustainable development: Mapping different approaches. Sustainable Development, 13, 38–52.
HSBC. (2009, February 25). A climate for recovery – The colour of stimulus goes green. HSBC Global Research.
IPCC. (2022). Climate change 2022: Impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press.
Jackson, T. (2009). Prosperity without growth. Economics for a finite planet. Earthscan.
Jackson, T. (2020). Wellbeing matters. Tackling growth dependencies (Briefing Paper No 3. All-Party Parliamentary Group on Limits to Growth).
Jain, P., & Jain, P. (2020). Are the sustainable development goals really sustainable? A policy perspective. Sustainable Development, 28, 1642–1651.
Jonker, J., Stegeman, H., & Faber, N. (2017). The circular economy - Developments, concepts and research for corresponding business models. Whitepaper. Radboud Universiteit.
Kallis, G., Kerschner, C., & Martinez-Alier, J. (2012). The economics of degrowth. Ecological Economics, 84, 172–180.
Leipold, S. (2021). Transforming ecological modernization ‘from within’ or perpetuating it? The circular economy as EU environment policy narrative. Environmental Politics, 30(6), 1045–1067.
Leleux, B., & Van der Kaaij, J. (2019). Winning sustainability strategies. Finding purpose, driving innovation and executing change. Palgrave-Macmillan.
Mayhew, S. H., & Colbourn, T. (2015). Population growth. In J. Waage & C. Yap (Eds.), Thinking beyond sectors for sustainable development. Ubiquity Press.
McArthur, J. W., & Rasmussen, K. (2018). Change of pace: Accelerations and advances during the Millennium Development Goal era. World Development, 105, 132–143.
McGreevy, S., Rupprecht, C., Niles, D., Wiek, A., Carolan, M., Kallis, G., et al. (2022). Sustainable agrifood systems for a post-growth world. Nature Sustainability, 5, 1011–1017.
McKenzie, S. (2004). Social sustainability: Towards some definitions (Working Paper Series No. 27). University of South Australia, Hawke Research Institute.
Mercer. (2011). Climate change scenarios (Implications for Strategic Assets Allocation, Public Report).
Mol, A. P. J. (1995). The refinement of production. Ecological modernization theory and the chemical industry. International Books/Van Arkel.
Natale, A., Di Martino, S., Procentese, F., & Arcidiacono, C. (2016). De-growth and critical community psychology: Contributions towards individual and social well-being. Futures, 78, 47–56.
OECD. (2019). OECD work on green growth. www.OECD.org/greengrowth.
Pedersen. (2018). The UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) are a great gift to business! Procedia CIRP (pp. 21–24).
Pham-Truffert, M., Metz, F., Fischer, M., Rueff, H., & Messerli, P. (2020). Interactions among sustainable development goals: Knowledge for identifying multipliers and virtuous cycles. Sustainable Development, 28, 1236–1250.
Porter, M. E., & Kramer, M. R. (2006, December). Strategy and society: The link between competitive advantage and corporate social Responsibility. Harvard Business Review, 1–15.
Reijnders, L. (1998). The factor X debate: Setting targets for eco-efficiency. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2(1), 13–23.
Rezai, A., & Stagl, S. (2016). Ecological macroeconomics: Introduction and review. Ecological Economics, 121, 181–185.
Röpke, I. (2016). Complementary system perspectives in ecological macroeconomics – The example of transition investments during the crisis. Ecological Economics, 121, 237–245.
Sachs, I. (1980). Stratégies de l’écodéveloppement. Editions économie et humanisme. Les éditions ouvrières.
Sachs, J. (2012). From millennium development goals to sustainable development goals. The Lancet, 379, 2206–2211.
Saes, B. M., & Romeiro, A. R. (2019). Ecological macroeconomics: A methodological review. Economia e Sociedade, Campinas, 28(2), 365–392.
Schmidheiny, S. (1992). Changing course: A global business perspective on development and the environment. MIT Press.
Schmidt, V. (2016). The roots of neo-liberal resilience: Explaining continuity and change in background ideas in Europe’s political economy. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 18(2), 318–334.
Schmidt-Bleek. (2008). Future – Beyond climatic change (Position Paper 08/01). Factor 10 Institute.
Schramade, W. (2017). Investing in the UN sustainable development goals: Opportunities for companies and investors. Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, 29(2), 87–99.
Stern, N. (2006). What is the economics of climate change? World Economics, 7(2), 2–10.
Tounta, D. D., Panagiotis, T., Nastos, P. T., & Tesseromatis, C. (2022). Human activities and zoonotic epidemics: A two-way relationship. The case of the COVID-19 pandemic. Global Sustainability, 5, e19.
Trainer, T. (2020). De-growth: Some suggestions from the simpler way perspective. Ecological Economics, 167, 1–6.
UNEP. (2009). Global green new deal. An update for the Pittsburgh Summit.
UNIDO. (2009). Breaking in and moving up: New industrial challenges for the bottom billion and the middle-income countries.
United Nations. (2015). The Millennium Development Goals Report 2015.
Victor, P., & Rosenbluth, G. (2007). Managing without growth: Slower by design, not disaster. Edward Elgar.
Walker, C. C., & Jackson, T. (2019). Measuring prosperity. Navigating the options (Cusp Working Paper No. 20). University of Surrey.
Wall-Markowski, C. A., Kicherer, A., & Wittlinger, R. (2005). Eco-efficiency: Inside BASF and beyond. Management of Environmental Quality, 16(2), 153–159.
Washington, H. (2021). Questioning the assumptions, sustainability and ethics of endless economic growth. Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 14(10), 497.
Wennersten, R., & Qie, S. (2017). United Nations sustainable development goals for 2030 and resource use. In W. Leal Filho (Ed.), Handbook of sustainability science and research. Springer International Publishing.
Wiedman, T. O., Schandl, H., Lenzen, M., Moran, D., Suh, S., West, J., & Kanemoto, K. (2015). The material footprint of nations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(20), 6271–6276.
Wolters, T. (2020, februari). Landelijk gebied als sleutel voor klimaatoplossingen. Tijdschrift Milieu, 13–16.
Wolters, T. (2022). Why is ecological sustainability so difficult to achieve? An in-context discussion of conceptual barriers. Sustainable Development, 30(6), 2025–2039.
Zhang, C., Chen, W. Q., & Ruth, M. (2018). Measuring material efficiency: A review of the historical evolution of indicators, methodologies and findings. Resources, Conservation & Recycling, 132, 79–92.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wolters, T. (2023). From Green Growth to Post-growth Approaches. In: Sustainable Value Creation. Sustainable Finance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35351-2_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35351-2_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-35350-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-35351-2
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)