If the Market and the State Cannot Provide Affordable, Sustainable Housing in Australia, Perhaps ‘Housing for Degrowth’ Can.
Having access to adequate housing is a human need and human right. Everyone deserves to have a home. In Australia, residential buildings are provided either by the market as private housing or by the state as social housing. Yet, modest income households are falling into a gap between them. Furthermore,…
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Dépense: What Is It?
Finding an effective solution to the environmental and social crises has been stymied by a lack of politically desirable, alternative social models. This has led to decades of incrementalism that has only exacerbated the challenges. Over the last five years or so, degrowth has appeared at the periphery of the…
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Women’s Work: What’s It Worth?
Morocco footballers celebrated their World Cup successes first with their mums, recognising the daily support their mothers give them. This is analogous to the whole economy, momentarily giving visibility to the fact that women everywhere bear the burden of care work. The economy doesn’t only consist of goods and services…
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Degrowth and Labour Solidarity
Political geography professor Matthew Huber argues that degrowth is middle class environmentalism and cannot hope to connect with the working class. Degrowth intellectual Jason Hickel responds, echoing environmentalist Chico Mendes, who said that “ecology without class struggle is just gardening”. He writes that “degrowth is justice” and that recognising this…
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Sustainable Development is Out, Degrowth Is In
Sustainable development, facilitated over the last 50 years by the UN, underpins mainstream business sustainability – the art of balancing decision making over three co-equal pillars: economic growth, environmental protection and social progress. But any business equation that includes economic growth inherently endangers environments and societies because growth (ie development)…
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Degrowth Is Taking Off
Degrowth is a relatively new academic idea that the mainstream is beginning to grasp – and like. Here’s a 3-min tongue-in-cheek video explaining a bit more about the ‘European’ school of degrowth. It introduces the book Degrowth: A vocabulary for a new era (2014) by Giacomo D’Alisa, Federico Demaria and…
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Degrowth Policy Example
Degrowth is a democratic, planned reduction in production and consumption to rebalance humanity’s relationship with nature and improve human wellbeing. I talk a lot about how businesses and industries need to be aware of degrowth as a resilience issue – meaning they need to prepare to adapt and transform as…
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What Does Earth Really Need From Patagonia?
Clothing company Patagonia’s announcement this week that “Earth is now our only shareholder” has lit up screens around the world. Founder Yvon Chouinard and his family have transferred complete ownership of the company, valued at US$3 billion, to two new entities. The Patagonia Purpose Trust, created to protect the company’s…
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Business Sustainability Has Lost Its Way
The bright lights of ESG are distracting us from the primary purpose of business sustainability. A sobering report from the UN Secretary-General warns that we are regressing on the SDGs. It’s time now for corporates to turn their powerful gaze toward absolute impact and to refocus on business sustainability’s raison…
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The Renewable Energy Squeeze
New Zealand is relying upon expansion of renewable energy generation to absorb the decarbonisation of transport, industry and households as part of its plan to reach net zero emissions by 2050. This will require renewable energy infrastructure investments of at least $13 billion over the next few decades and overcoming…
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Heliocene 