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Next Growth: Re-Imagining Growth

tl;dr: Moving beyond growth as a paradigm is vital to unlock a new economy of prosperity, creativity and sustainability – and business has a large role to play 

Successful business = economic growth. This equation appears to be a natural law of economics, despite the many downsides of growth (exploitation, inequalities, ecological degradation) and the economic limitations of growth (secular stagnation, lagging productivity, global demographic change, low to negative interest rates). In fact, in can be argued that we already see the first signs of a postgrowth age, with decelerating global growth rates and possible contractions in many countries in the years and decades ahead.… Read more

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Notes from AOM 2018

tl;dr: Management scholars need to embrace activism, not just because of the state of the world but because of the state of their field.

Every August since 2009 it is AOM season for me: the Academy of Management holds its annual meeting and around 10,000 management scholars from around the planet converge on one place for five days, filled with workshops, symposia, paper sessions and endless debates on the relevance, impacts and challenges of management as society’s dominant practice.… Read more

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Digital Sustainability and Social Innovation

tl;dr: Social innovators are political entrepreneurs and the sustainability of the digital age requires a new political economy

Can digitalisation aid in achieving Sustainable Development? The answer is ”definitely maybe“. Digitalisation comes with great potentials of empowering active prosumerism and new forms of creative collaboration beyond the market, but also with great rucksacks of material and energy consumption. Digital Sustainability then demands fundamental economic change towards a circular economy, but also a transformation of social behaviours and structures.… Read more

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Digitalisation and Sustainability

tl;dr: Those who want to talk about digitalisation should also talk about the circular economy and sufficiency

Is the digital economy an enabler for a sustainable society? What role do commons, both digital as well as physical, play when it comes to inclusion, equity and mitigating climate change? How can different actors in society frame digital technologies from the normative perspective of Sustainability? These and other questions have been discussed at a recent ideas conference of the TU Berlin on digitalisation and sustainability – “digitalisation” being a very German-English description for the increased use of digital technologies throughout society and their economic, social, political and ecological implications.… Read more

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Sustainability: From Science to Politics to Ethics: Laudation for Jeffrey D. Sachs

tl;dr: Doing sustainability science requires transgressing science, politics and ethcis – and Jeffrey D. Sachs is a role model how to achieve that with integrity and professional excellence

Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbank, 9 November 2017

Dear honoured guests, dear ladies and gentlemen,
Dear Wilfried Stadler and the entire GLOBART team,
Dear Sonia and Jeffrey Sachs:

More than 6 years ago, in the springtime of 2011, the 17th International Sustainable Development Research Conference was held at Columbia University’s Earth Institute in New York.… Read more