Growth (In)Dependencies: How Can Societies Become More Resilient?

Growth dependencies can be analysed at various levels: the international, the supra-national (that is, European), the national and the local level. The contributions to the workshop yielded several key insights, including: 

• Growth dependencies are often deeply entrenched in political institutions. In this vein, a few presenters outlined how many (European) welfare states continue to be growth-dependent despite increasing evidence that this dependence is both socially and ecologically problematic. For example, Raphael Kaufmann (formerly ZOE Institute, now Arbeitskammer Wien) discussed the growth dependence of employment in the Austrian welfare state. Key policy recommendations were, first, to increase taxes on inheritances, wealth and land while lowering taxes on labour; and second, to reduce working time.
   
• Growth dependencies are being challenged here and there. For example, ‘beyond GDP’ discourses, which are already relatively mainstream, and more nascent ‘beyond growth’ discourses in institutions of the European Union (EU) contest the growth paradigm. Examples were the MERGE and WISE Horizons projects presented by Magalí Brosio (ZOE Institute), and the Beyond Growth 2023 Conference presented by Marie Neubert (University of Kassel). A presentation on municipal growth autonomy by Coline Chardon (University of Freiburg) from the MUTUAL project zoomed in on concrete ways in which two cities – Grenoble in France and Freiburg in Germany – have implemented innovative measures, such as solidarity-based pricing for public transport or a food social security system.
   
• An overarching insight was that the public acceptance of post-growth measures varies with wealth level and with gender. Daniele Malerba (IDOS) showed that support for post-growth is stronger among citizens from countries in the Global South, as well as among women. Moreover, for post-growth measures to be successful, they have to be perceived as fair.
   
• Martin Fritz (Bielefeld University) stressed that growth dependencies are not only institutional and structural, but also mental – expressed, for example, in the desire for material consumption, career advancement and individual self-optimisation.

Conclusions 

Across the different contributions, three major conclusions emerged. 

• First, growth dependencies are pervasive, occurring at various levels and taking different forms.
   
• Second, we need to better understand the complexities of growth dependencies in different settings. 
   
• Third, further research is needed about what less growth-dependent or even growth-independent societies could look like, and what measures might support such a transition in socially acceptable ways. Most people struggle to imagine how, for example, international trade, social security systems or businesses could work properly without economic growth.
   

Overall, the workshop offered both abstract and practical lessons about how growth dependencies may be rethought and reduced. In doing so, the event permitted glimpses into potential future societies in which low or even zero growth would not have dramatic consequences.
 

The workshop was co-organised by Matthias Kranke and Tabea Waltenberg with support from the other members of the research group team: Isabell Daniels, Jassin El-Kordy and Lichen Tian. It was the first event of the annual international workshop series on ‘Global Sustainability Governance’. The next workshop, planned to take place in November 2026, will focus on transnational planning in the context of the global ecological crisis.