“Degrowth is not a one-size-fits-all concept, but a mosaic of ideas, practices, and visions that draw from various sources.”
- Degrowth.net
Degrowth is an academic and social movement aimed at the planned and democratic reduction of production and consumption as a solution to social-ecological crises.
- Wikipedia
a trajectory where the ‘throughput’ (energy, materials and waste flows) of an economy decreases while welfare, or well-being, improves.
- Giorgos Kallis, 2018
It's about making decisions about what we make and what we buy based on what makes us happy, rather than what makes money. And it’s about us making those decisions, not corporations.
- Michael M, DNA member
Degrowth is a planned and democratic shift away from an economy that always aims to grow, even when growth harms people or the planet. ... It is planned to avoid harm by protecting employment, reducing resource use fairly and supporting a good life for all within planetary boundaries.
- Regenerative Economics
How do we save our planet? Some economists believe the only way is to radically scale back our global consumption of resources. This is a key premise of degrowth – a political and economic theory that is gaining traction as fears grow over climate change.
- World Economic Forum, 2022
a policy of reducing levels of production and consumption within an economy in order to conserve natural resources and minimize environmental damage.
- Oxford Dictionary
It's about coming together to make decisions democratically, ensuring that our communities live and work in ways that feel right to us.
- International Degrowth Network
A planned reduction of excess energy and resource use to bring the economy back into balance with the living world in a safe, just and equitable way.
- Jason Hickel, 2020
degrowth has evolved from an activist movement into a vibrant multi-disciplinary academic field, ... [drawing] from anthropology, sociology, and philosophy, and links to inter-disciplinary research in ecological economics and industrial ecology
- Martin Weiss & Claudio Cattaneo, 2017
It is not a call for economic recession but a deliberate, managed systemic shift toward a steady-state economy that operates within scientifically determined planetary boundaries.
- The Sustainability Directory