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0:00
Economic growth on a
regional, national,
or even the international
level is very much
at odds with the essence of
sustainable development.
We have sustainability,
and we have economic growth,
and never the twain shall meet,
at least not for Global
North countries.
Therefore, in my view,
green growth or
sustainable growth,
or however you want to call it,
are essentially
oxymoronic concepts and
that is why we need
a degrowth economy.
Please let me explain why.
By the way, my name
is Egbert Dommerholt.
I am professor bio-based
business valorization or
circular economy at
the Hanze University of Applied
Sciences, Groningen
in the Netherlands.
0:45
Before we continue, I
would like to emphasize
that this talk is the first
of a series of three.
In this talk, I will focus
on why we need to degrowth.
The next talk will
accentuate the role of
business in taking
moral responsibility,
in moving towards a
degrowth economy.
In the final talk,
we will work towards a
degrowth business model.
1:11
I would like to start my line of
argumentation with the
sustainable development notion.
As you probably know,
sustainable development
is a development
which meets the needs
of the present,
without compromising
the ability of
future generations to
meet their own needs.
That is how sustainable
development was
defined by
the World Commission on
Economic Development
back in 1987.
This notion clearly
has two perspectives,
now and in the future
or intergenerational
perspective,
and here and there
or an intragenerational
perspective.
For example, the global
North South divide.
Usually, sustainable
development is
about three interrelated
principles or dimensions.
Each dimension has
a qualitative and
quantitative component.
The first is the
social dimension.
The qualitative
dimension includes,
for example, income
and gender equality,
plus the quantitative
component could be
about population size,
and population growth.
The second is the
ecological dimension,
where protection
of the environment
has a more qualitative focus,
whilst resource consumption,
and depletion are more
quantity oriented.
Third is the economic dimension,
and the qualitative aspect
here could be dignity.
Workers should be
treated with dignity,
and respect, because
of who they are,
and prosperity or
income per capita
is an example of a
quantitative indicator.
Furthermore, sustainable
development has
an environmental connotation,
and is very much
concerned driven.
As you may have noticed,
the definition of
sustainable development
is rather broad, and imprecise.
To get a better understanding
of what it looks like,
we need to bring in more focus.
