HBR Insights Future of Business Boxed Set (8 Books)

 

5

WHY “DEGROWTH” SHOULDN’T SCARE BUSINESSES

by Thomas Roulet and Joel Bothello

The concept of degrowth dates back to the 1970s, when a group of French intellectuals led by the philosopher Andre Gorz proposed a simple idea: In response to mounting environmental and social problems, they suggested that the only real solution was to produce and consume less—to shrink our economies to cope with the carrying capacity of our planet. The proposal was considered by many at the time to be too radical. But with today’s climate crisis, debates around degrowth have been reinvigorated, and many major figures such as Noam Chomsky, Yanis Varoufakis, and Anthony Giddens have, to varying degrees, expressed support for the idea.

For others, though—especially ...