Green growth? No

In fact, an increasingly robust body of scientific literature shows that green growth cannot be sustainable—but also, that a different form of organizing society is possible. To achieve sustainability, so-called developed countries need to abandon the objective of GDP growth and scale down less necessary and destructive forms of production to reduce energy and material use. We need a planned and selective contraction of economic activity aimed at increasing well-being and equality. Or, as recently argued in this journal, we need “ecosocialist degrowth.” Degrowth is founded on and justified by a solid critique of market instruments, the optimistic reliance on price mechanisms and private-sector solutions, which are central to so-called “green economy” approaches. Indeed, the lack of social-ecological planning and the reliance on socially unjust and often ineffective market instruments is precisely what has led us into this mess in the first place.