When Green Growth Is Not Enough

Is the pursuit of endless economic growth compatible with the deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions required to avoid the worst extremes of climate change? In When Green Growth Is Not Enough, Anders Hayden analyzes the political battle between three competing approaches to this question and how it has played out in Canada and Britain. Defenders of the "business-as-usual" approach reject climate action as too costly and in conflict with economic growth, while downplaying the severity of climate change. Supporters of ecological modernization, or "green growth," on the other hand, aim to use technology and efficiency to delink economic expansion from emissions and find business opportunities through environmental action. While mainstream debate has focused on these two pro-growth models, Hayden pays particular attention to the struggles and limited inroads of a third, more radical perspective: the idea of sufficiency, which challenges the continued growth of production and consumption in the already-affluent global North and asks, how much is enough? Drawing on interviews, participation in climate-related events, and analysis of key documents, Hayden shows the role these paradigms have played in Britain, one of the world’s leaders in climate reform, and in Canada, a nation at the bottom of international climate change rankings. Rich in detail, When Green Growth Is Not Enough is a lively account of the theory and real-world politics of climate action.

A systematic and thorough comparison between Canada's and Britain's actions on climate change.

Inclusive Green Growth: The Pathway to Sustainable Development makes the case that greening growth is necessary, efficient, and affordable. Yet spurring growth without ensuring equity will thwart efforts to reduce poverty and improve access to health, education, and infrastructure services.

What can prosperity possibly mean in a world of environmental and social limits? The publication of Prosperity without Growth was a landmark in the sustainability debate. Tim Jackson’s piercing challenge to conventional economics openly questioned the most highly prized goal of politicians and economists alike: the continued pursuit of exponential economic growth. Its findings provoked controversy, inspired debate and led to a new wave of research building on its arguments and conclusions. This substantially revised and re-written edition updates those arguments and considerably expands upon them. Jackson demonstrates that building a ‘post-growth’ economy is a precise, definable and meaningful task. Starting from clear first principles, he sets out the dimensions of that task: the nature of enterprise; the quality of our working lives; the structure of investment; and the role of the money supply. He shows how the economy of tomorrow may be transformed in ways that protect employment, facilitate social investment, reduce inequality and deliver both ecological and financial stability. Seven years after it was first published, Prosperity without Growth is no longer a radical narrative whispered by a marginal fringe, but an essential vision of social progress in a post-crisis world. Fulfilling that vision is simply the most urgent task of our times.

How we can achieve healthy growth--more regenerative than destructive, restoring equity rather than exacerbating inequalities. In Tomorrow's Economy, Per Espen Stoknes reframes the hot-button issue of economic growth. Going beyond the usual dialectic of pro-growth versus anti-growth, Stoknes calls for healthy growth. Healthy economic growth is more regenerative than destructive, repairs problems rather than greenwashing them, and restores equity rather than exacerbating global inequalities. Stoknes--a psychologist, economist, climate strategy researcher, and green-tech entrepreneur--argues that we have the tools to achieve healthy growth, but our success depends on transformations in government practices and individual behavior. Stoknes provides a compass to guide us toward the mindset, mechanisms, and possibilities of healthy growth.

The discourse of ‘green growth’ has recently gained ground in environmental governance deliberations and policy proposals. It is presented as a fresh and innovative agenda centred on the deployment of engineering sophistication, managerial acumen and market mechanisms to redress the environmental and social derelictions of the existing development model. But the green growth project is deeply inadequate, whether assessed against criteria of social justice or the achievement of sustainable economic life upon a materially finite planet. This volume outlines three main lines of critique. First, it traces the development of the green growth discourse quaideology. It asks: what explains modern society’s investment in it, why has it emerged as a master concept in the contemporary conjuncture, and what social forces does it serve? Second, it unpicks and explains the contradictions within a series of prominent green growth projects. Finally, it weighs up the merits and demerits of alternative strategies and policies, asking the vital question: ‘if not green growth, then what?’

"Four Years of the Green Growth Strategy"--Cover.