Sustainable Development and Governance in Europe

3    The impact of de-growth (la décroissance) on the discourse of sustainability

Assen Slim

Introduction

‘De-growth’ (la décroissance) emerged as a discourse amongst academics, primarily in France, in the early 2000s. Its proponents rejected the hypothesis that sustainability can go hand in hand with growth. It was not a new discourse, as some academics in the 1990s had begun to question the accepted view of sustainable development: for example, it had been described as a ‘[programmed] mythology’ (Perrot et al. 1992: 125), and ‘one of the most damaging [of] concepts’ (Georgescu-Roegen 1991: 53). However, in the early 2000s the proponents of the de-growth view drew together a wider group of people from various academic disciplines and backgrounds. ...