André Reichel – Page 9 of 16 – Sustainability & Postgrowth Research

2016/06/20

Sustainability as a Key Idea informing Social Practice and Order

tl;dr: Sustainability is a social phenomenon of political, economic and ethical struggles to change social practices towards more ecological and societal equity with care.

Why on Earth another scholarly book, an introduction even, on Sustainability? Because most introductions focus on a list of definitions, principles, and cases for Sustainability and sustainable development. They present a panopticum of »everything sustainable« but lack the focus on its social and political nature. This is often reserved for more advanced texts but we – Thomas Pfister, Martin Schweighofer, and I – were deeply convinced that you have to introduce Sustainability as essentially political and thus essentially contested.

2016/03/112016/03/11

Postgrowth and Degrowth

tl;dr: Degrowth is just one postgrowth approach, not the postgrowth approach.

Since Serge Latouche in 2004 threw in »décroissance« as a missile word into the sustainability debates, growth criticism regained its 1970s strength while connecting strongly to issues of social justice and equality, emancipation and democratic renewal, as well as a critique of capitalism. Degrowth, the English translation of the term, has then occupied the center stage in this newly emerging discourse. In Germany, the term »Postwachstumsökonomie« (postgrowth economy) has been introduced by Niko Paech in 2006.… Read more

2015/12/132015/12/14

The Future of Climate Change: What to make of the Paris Agreement

The climate deal in Paris might not save the planet from human-made climate change as it falls short on questioning the expansionist logic of the growth economy but it is nevertheless a surprising achievement of a global climate change discourse that defies all divisions and crises we currently witness. It is a sign of hope but the true discussion of how to achieve the 1.5C target is now on.

The Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (its full name) was welcomed by the Economist with the headline »History is here«.… Read more

2015/11/072015/11/07

Re-taking Sustainable Development for Degrowth

In the discourse on degrowth – the deliberate and planned downscaling of production and consumption that increases human well-being and enhances ecological conditions and equity on the planet – the notion of »sustainable development« has sort of a bad rap. In fact, sustainable degrowth is intended to replace sustainable development as the central concept under which ecological and social minded activists and researchers might rally. Serge Latouche, the one who first fired the »missile word« of décroissance into the pubic realm, once held a talk titled »Down with sustainable development!… Read more

2015/09/172016/04/27

What’s NEXT? Wirtschaften jenseits des Wachstums

Unsere heutige Art des Wirtschaftens basiert auf der Unterstellung fundamentaler Knappheiten: Zeit, Geld, Aufmerksamkeit – das alles ist knapp und Unternehmen versuchen, mit diesen Knappheiten umzugehen, indem neue Produkte entwickelt, neue Märkte erobert und neue Kunden gewonnen werden. Diese NOW ECONOMY ist eine Wirtschaft der Expansion, der permanenten Flucht aus der Knappheit, die aber nie richtig zurückgelassen werden kann – sonst hörte ja auch die Flucht auf. Das Ergebnis ist ein historisch bis vor kurzem nicht gekanntes Wirtschaftswachstum gepaart mit einem ebenso historisch einmaligen Energieverbrauch und CO2- Ausstoß.