DE-GROWTH, PRO WHAT?

Backcasting a sustainable society withouteconomic growth

5th International Degrowth Conference, Budapest31st August 2016

Liisa Haapanen

My thesis• Tentative title: Alternative futures of a society

without economic growth• Inspiration from my master’s thesis (Haapanen 2013,

Haapanen and Tapio 2016)• Critics of growth describe clearly what they oppose, but

what do they promote?

• Creating multiple scenarios by backcasting• Interviews and a Delphi study to gather data• 2016-2019• Currently under work:

• Questions, not answers!• Literature review

Basic concepts and methods offutures studies

• Image of future (see e.g. Rubin and Linturi 2001):describes a static state of future

• Futures table (Seppälä 2013 [1993])

• Scenario (see e.g. Durance and Godet 2010): describesa pathway between present and a future state

• Forecasting: from present to future• Backcasting (Robinson 1982, 1990): from future

to present• normative• especially suitable when dominant trends are

problematic

Materials• First step in backcasting is to determine the

preferred future end-state.

àWhat kind of a future does growth critiquepromote?

àA literature review:• Buen vivir (9)• Degrowth (13)• Philosophy of sufficiency economy (11)• Steady-state (11)• Transition movement (8)

A common vision?• Common core:

• Ending nature-human divide• Reinventing economy/economics• Holistic perspective on well-being• Openness to variation

• Equality, democracy, technology?

• Post-growth, post-economism, post-consumerism,post-development, post-westernisation…à different aspects of the same problem?

• The question whether all post-growth movementsshould unite forces globally was not discussed inthe material. What are the pros and cons?

Ulvila & Pasanen (2009):Class Perspective on Sustainability of Cultures

3 phases of transition

• From the perspective of overconsuming class:• Kerschner (2010): degrowth + steady-state• Daly (according to O’Neill 2015): ”we cannot go into

reverse without first coming to a stopӈ3 phases: 1) stop, 2) degrowth, 3) steady-state

• From the perspective of struggling class:• 1) build to enable, 2) towards good life, 3) steady-state

• From the perspective of sustainable class:• steady-state in 3 different situations

Common challenges 1/3

• Investments ineco-efficienttechnology arevital (although notsufficient alone)

Common challenges 2/3• Smooth transition or crisis?

• Multiple critical periods within a short timeframe• Society and economy form a complex network of specialized

institutions à Synchronous or asynchronous alteration of nodes?• Rules of the game change 3 times. How to keep well-being,

livelihoods and investments in eco-efficiency stable?

Common challenges 3/3

• How to scale up?• What would trigger the general public to change its values and

mind-set?• How many compromises could or should be made?

• “the mud of real life politics” (Gómez-Baggethun 2015)• risk of co-optation or becoming watered-down

Five scenario sketches

• Triggering effect as a starting point for scenarioconstruction

1) DIY Social Policy• People lose their trust in democratic institutions

2) Free Time Society• Robotisation endangers livelihoods and

meaningfulness of working life3) Work-place Revolution

• A financial crisis leads citizens to question currenteconomic policies and business practices

4) New Consciousness• change of values and mindsets due to overwhelming

cognitive dissonance5) Prosumer Society

• Escalating ecological crisis

THANK YOU!

liisa.haapanen@utu.fi

http://www.utu.fi/en/units/ffrc/Pages/home.aspx

References of the presentation:

Durance, P., & Godet, M. (2010). Scenario building: Uses and abuses. Technological Forecasting andSocial Change, 77(9), 1488-1492.

Gómez-Baggethun, E. (2015) Commodification. In: D'Alisa, G., Demaria, F., & Kallis, G. (2015).Degrowth: A vocabulary for a new era. NY and London: Routledge. pp. 67-70.

Haapanen, L. 2013: Ilmiö, instituutio ja ideologia – 2000-luvun talouskasvukritiikin teemat.[Phenomenon, Institution and Ideology – Themes of 21st Century Economic Growth Critique, inFinnish, abstract in English]. Master’s thesis. Helsinki: Department of Environmental Sciences,Helsinki University. Available at:https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/44720/Gradu_Haapanen.pdf?sequence=1

Haapanen, L. & Tapio, P. (2016) Economic growth as phenomenon, institution and ideology: aqualitative content analysis of the 21st century growth critique. Journal of Cleaner Production112 (Part 4), 3492-3503.

Kerschner, C. (2010). Economic de-growth vs. steady-state economy. Journal of Cleaner Production18 (6), 544–551.

O'Neill, D. W. (2015). The proximity of nations to a socially sustainable steady-state economy. Journalof Cleaner Production, 108, 1213-1231

Robinson, J.B. 1990: Futures under glass: A recipe for people who hate to predict. Futures, 22, 820–842.

Robinson, J. B. (1982). Energy backcasting. A proposed method of policy analysis. Energy Policy,10(4), 337-344.

.

References of the presentation:

Rubin, A., Linturi, H. (2001). Transition in the making. The images of the future in education anddecision-making. Futures 33 (3-4), pp. 267-305.

Seppälä, Yrjö (2013) Tulevaisuustaulukko-menetelmä – Sovelluksena vanhustenhuolto. [Futures tablemethod. An application to the care of elderly.] In: Kuusi, O.; Bergman, T. & Salminen, H. (eds.)Miten tutkimme tulevaisuuksia? [How do we explore our futures?] 3rd, revised edition. ActaFutura Fennica 5. The Finnish Society for Futures Studies, Helsinki.

Ulvila M. & Pasanen J. (2009). Sustainable Futures: Replacing Growth Imperative and Hierarchies withSustainable Ways. Finnish Foreign Ministry. Available at:www.ymparistojakehitys.fi/susopapers/Sustainable_Futures.pdf. Accessed 25.6.2016.

References of the literature reviewBuen vivir:Guardiola, J., & García-Quero, F. (2014). Buen vivir (living well) in Ecuador: Community and

environmental satisfaction without household material prosperity? EcologicalEconomics, 107, 177-184. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.07.032

Gudynas, E. (2011). Buen vivir: Today's tomorrow. Development, 54(3-4), 441-447.doi:10.1057/dev.2011.86

Kauffman, C. M., & Martin, P. L. (2014). Scaling up buen vivir: Globalizing localenvironmental governance from Ecuador. Global Environmental Politics, 14(1), 40-58.doi:10.1162/GLEP_a_00256

Kothari, A., Demaria, F., & Acosta, A. (2014). Buen vivir, degrowth and ecological swaraj:Alternatives to sustainable development and the green economy. Development, 57(3-4), 362.

Thomson, B. (2011). Pachakuti: Indigenous perspectives, buen vivir, sumaq kawsay anddegrowth. Development, 54(4), 448-454.

Vanhulst, J., & Beling, A. E. (2014). Buen vivir: Emergent discourse within or beyondsustainable development? Ecological Economics, 101, 54-63.doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.02.017

References of the literature reviewBuen vivir (continued):Villalba, U. (2013). Buen vivir vs development: A paradigm shift in the Andes? Third World

Quarterly, 34(8), 1427-1442. doi:10.1080/01436597.2013.831594Walsh, C. (2010). Development as buen vivir : Institutional arrangements and (de)colonial

entanglements. Development, 53(1), 15-21.

Degrowth:Baykan, B. (2007). From limits to growth to degrowth within French politics. Environmental

Politics 16 (3), 513–517.D'Alisa, G., Demaria, F., & Kallis, G. (2015). Degrowth: A vocabulary for a new era. NY and

London: Routledge.Demaria, F.; Schneider, F.; Sekulova, F. and Martínez-Alier, J. (2013.) What is degrowth?

From an activist slogan to a social movement. Environmental Values 22 (2), 191–215Fournier, V. (2008). Escaping from the economy: the politics of degrowth. International

Journal of Sociology and Social Policy. 28 (11–12), 528–545.Garcia, E. (2012). Degrowth, the past, the future, and the human nature. Futures, 44(6), 546-

552. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2012.03.015Jakob, M., & Edenhofer, O. (2014). Green growth, degrowth, and the commons. Oxford

Review of Economic Policy, 30(3), 447-468.

References of the literature reviewDegrowth (continued):Kallis, G. (2011). In defence of degrowth. Ecological Economics 70 (5), 873–880.Kerschner, C. (2010). Economic de-growth vs. steady-state economy. Journal of

Cleaner Production 18 (6), 544–551.Martínez-Alier, J.; Pascual U.; Franck-Dominique, V. and Zaccai E. (2010). Sustainable de-

growth: Mapping the context, criticisms and future prospects of an emergent paradigm.Ecological Economics 69 (9), 1741–1747.

Ott, K. (2012). Variants of de-growth and deliberative democracy: A Habermasian proposal.Futures, 44(6), 571-581. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2012.03.018

Research & Degrowth (2010). Degrowth declaration of the Paris 2008 conference. Journalof Cleaner Production 18 (6), 523–524.

Ulvila, M., & Pasanen, J. (2011). Degrowth luokkanäkökulmasta. [Degrowth from a classperspective. In Finnish.]. Futura, 30(1), 19-29.

van den Bergh, J. and Kallis, G.(2012). Growth, a-growth or degrowth to stay within planetaryboundaries? Journal of Economic Issues 46 (4), 909–919.

Philosophy of Sufficiency Economy:Amornsiriphong, S., Piemyat, S., & Charoenrat, O. (2012). Social capital:

Foundation to strengthen the sufficiency economy communities. ProcediaEngineering, 32, 1147-1151. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.proeng.2012.02.069

References of the literature reviewPhilosophy of Sufficiency Economy (continued):Hewison, K. (1999). Localism in Thailand: a study of globalisation and its discontents. CSGR

Working Paper No. 39/99. University of Warwick. Available at:wrap.warwick.ac.uk/2086/1/WRAP_hewison_wp3999.pdf . Accesed 23.6.2016.

Mongsawad, P. (2010). The Philosophy of Sufficiency Economy. A contribution to the Theoryof Deveopment. Asia-Pacific Development Journal 17 (1), 123-143.

Office of the Royal Development Projects Board (2004). The Royal Development StudyCentres and the Philosophy of Sufficiency Economy. Available atsufficiencyeconomy.org/old/en/files/14.pdf Accessed 23.6.2016.

Piboolsravut, P. (2004): Sufficiency Economy. ASEAN Economic Bulletin 21 (1), 127-134.Sachayansrisakul, N (2009). Sufficiency Economy : A Reasonable Approach for Thailand’s

Future. NIDA Development Journal 49(2), 1-23.Silanoi, L. (2012). The development of teaching pattern for promoting the building up of

character education based on sufficiency economy philosophy in Thailand. Procedia –Social and Behavioral Sciences, 69, 1812-1816.doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.12.131

Suvachittanont, W., & Sangsirimongkolying, R. (2013). Raw material management ofcommunity incense production through sufficiency economy philosophy. Procedia –Social and Behavioral Sciences, 91, 697-702.doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.08.471

References of the literature reviewPhilosophy of Sufficiency Economy (continued):Thanungkano, W., Boonkum, P., Wisarnsuwannakorn, R., & Mungkalasiri, J.

(2015). Sufficiency economy for local energy security: A case study in Wiang Sajatropha municipalilty. Energy Procedia, 79, 465-470.doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2015.11.520

Tungkasamit, A., Silanoi, L., Nethanomsak, T., & Pimthong, P. (2014). Evaluation of schoolactivities for developing the desired characteristics based on sufficiency economyphilosophy: A project report. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 116, 541-546.doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.01.255

Wedchayanon, N., & Chorkaew, S. (2014). The sufficiency economy and people-centereddevelopment: The case of the Huay Sai royal development project in Thailand. (2014).European Journal of Training and Development, 38(9).

Steady-state:Daly, H. (1996). Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development. Boston:

Beacon Press.Daly, H. (1974). Steady-state economics versus growthmania: A critique of the orthodox

conceptions of growth, wants, scarcity, and efficiency. Policy Sciences 5 (2), 149–167.

References of the literature reviewSteady-state (continued):Blauwhof, F. B. (2012). Overcoming accumulation: Is a capitalist steady-

state economy possible? Ecological Economics, 84, 254-261.doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.03.012

Buch-Hansen, H. (2014). Capitalist diversity and de-growth trajectories to steady-stateeconomies. Ecological Economics, 106, 167-173.doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.07.030

García-Olivares, A., & Ballabrera-Poy, J. (2015). Energy and mineral peaks, and a futuresteady state economy. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 90, Part B, 587-598. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.utu.fi:2048/10.1016/j.techfore.2014.02.013

Honkasalo, A. (1998). Entropy, exergy and steady-state economy. Sustainable Development,6(3), 130-142. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1099-1719(199812)6:3<130::AID-SD95>3.0.CO;2-V

Lawn, P. (2010). Facilitating the transition to a steady-state economy: Some macroeconomicfundamentals. Ecological Economics, 69(5), 931-936.doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.12.013

Lawn, P. (2011). Is steady-state capitalism viable? Annals of the New York Academy ofSciences, 1219(1), 1-25. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2011.05966.x

O'Neill, D. (2015). What should be held steady in a steady-state economy?: InterpretingDaly's definition at the national level. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 19(4), 552-563.doi:10.1111/jiec.12224

References of the literature reviewSteady-state (continued):O'Neill, D. W. (2015). The proximity of nations to a socially sustainable steady-state

economy. Journal of Cleaner Production, 108, 1213-1231.doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.07.116

Pin, X., & Hutao, Y. (2007). Re-reading steady-state economy: Calm thinking on hot circulareconomy. China Population, Resources and Environment, 17(3), 20-23.doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1872-583X(07)60012-6

Transition movement:Barnes, P. (2015). The political economy of localization in the transition movement.

Community Development Journal, 50(2), 312-326.Colin, S. (2014). The transition movement and food sovereignty: From local resilience to

global engagement in food system transformation. Journal of Consumer Culture, 14(2),254-275.

Felicetti, A. (2013). Localism and the transition movement. Policy Studies, 34(5-6), 1-16.Feola, G. (2014). Narratives of grassroots innovations: A comparison of voluntary simplicity

and the transition movement in Italy. International Journal of Innovation andSustainable Development, 8(3), 250-269. doi:10.1504/IJISD.2014.066612

References of the literature reviewTransition movement (continued):Feola, G., & Nunes, R. (2014). Success and failure of grassroots innovations for

addressing climate change: The case of the transition movement. GlobalEnvironmental Change-Human and Policy Dimensions, 24, 232-250.doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.11.011.

Maelgand, M., Bay Mortensen, N., Bedkowska, B., Hansen, F., Schow, M.,Thomsen, A., & Hunka, A. (2014). Environmental awareness, the transitionmovement, and place: Den selvforsynende landsby, a Danish transitioninitiative. Geoforum, 57, 40.

Neal, S. (2013). Transition culture: Politics, localities and ruralities. Journal ofRural Studies, 32, 60-69. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2013.04.001

Stevenson, N. (2012). Localization as subpolitics: The transition movement andcultural citizenship. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 15(1), 65-79.