🗓️ Session 8: Sustainable Development, Environmental Limits, and Degrowth

Author
Affiliation

Claudius Gräbner-Radkowitsch

EUF and JKU

Published

05 12 2025

Modified

26 11 2025

Abstract

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🖥️ Lecture Slides

Either click on the slide area below or click here to download the slides.

Dimension Indicators Used for Measurement
Food 1. Population undernourished
2. Population with moderate to severe food insecurity
Health 1. Population living in countries with under-5 mortality rate exceeding 25 per 1,000 live births
2. Population living in countries without high coverage of essential health services (Universal Health Coverage Index score less than 60 out of 100)
Education 1. Adult population (aged 15+ years) who are illiterate
2. Young adult population (aged 21-23 years) with incomplete upper secondary education
Income and work 1. Population living below the societal poverty line (set at half their country’s median household income or at least $15 a day)
2. Population of young people (aged 15-24 years) not in employment, education or training (NEET)
Water and sanitation 1. Population lacking access to safely managed drinking water
2. Population lacking access to safely managed sanitation
Energy 1. Population lacking access to electricity
2. Population lacking access to clean fuels and technologies for cooking, heating and lighting
Connectivity 1. Urban population lacking convenient access to public transport
2. Population not accessing the internet
Housing 1. Urban population living in slums or informal settlements
Equality 1. Population-weighted score on the Gender Inequality Index (global gap between women and men in reproductive health, empowerment and employment)
2. Racial inequality (no global indicator currently available)
Social cohesion 1. Population stating that they are without someone to count on in times of trouble
2. Population living in countries with a Palma ratio of 2 or more (income share of richest 10% relative to poorest 40%)
Political voice 1. Population living in countries governed by an autocratic regime
Peace and justice 1. Population stating that they perceive widespread corruption in government and business
2. Population living in countries with a homicide rate of 5 or more per 100,000

Time-series data for the period 2000-2022 is available through the supplementary data of Fanning and Raworth (2025).

🎯 Interactive and follow-up exercises

  • …

Both exercises contain elements to be done in class, as well as follow-up elements, which can help you to deepen to topics of this lecture.

Below you also find two possible ‘solutions’, although it is entirely possible to come up with different assessments.

  • TBA

📚 Mandatory Reading

Read before the lecture:

  • Very concise video by Kate Raworth introducing the ide of doughnut economics
  • Fanning and Raworth (2025)
    • A clear and recent introduction to the doughnut approach; I suggest to read it after watching the short video
  • Hickel(2020)
    • Concise introduction to what is meant by ‘degrowth’ (for a crititical view, see further readings)

🏆 Further Readings

  • Anguelovski and Martínez-Alier (2014)
    • Nice introduction to the “environmentalism of the poor”, clearly outlining the bidirectional relationship between well-being and environmental protection.
  • Trainer (2021)
    • A response to the Hickel (2020) reading, illustrating the heterogeneity of the degrowth movement.
  • Schmelzer (2023)
    • Clearly explains the distinction between growth critiques and GDP critiques.
  • Anvaari (2025): The Doughnut and the Divide
    • A critical comment on the doughnut concept, written from a decolonial Marxist perspective.
  • Richardson et al. (2023)
    • Description of the planetary boundary concept and its quantification; example for perspective of earth system sciences.

An important controversy about degrowth:

  • Hickel and Kallis (2020)
    • The original argument about the infeasibility of continued growth because of limits to decoupling.
  • Warlenius (2023)
    • A critical comment that quantifies how much degrowth would be necessary to meet climate goals if there was the limit of decoupling described by degrowth scholars.
  • Jackson et al. (2024) and Warlenius (2025)
    • Two rejoinders to the previous two articles, each defending their respective position.

If you have questions or problems, please post them in the Moodle forum.

References

Anguelovski, I. and Martínez-Alier, J. (2014) “The ‘Environmentalism of the Poor’ revisited: Territory and place in disconnected glocal struggles,” Ecological Economics 102: 167–176.
Fanning, A. L. and Raworth, K. (2025) “Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries monitors a world out of balance,” Nature 646(8083): 47–56, doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09385-1.
Hickel, J. (2020) “What does degrowth mean? A few points of clarification,” Globalizations 1–7, doi:10.1080/14747731.2020.1812222.
Hickel, J. and Kallis, G. (2020) “Is Green Growth Possible?” New Political Economy 25(4): 469–486, doi:10.1080/13563467.2019.1598964.
Jackson, T., Hickel, J. and Kallis, G. (2024) “Confronting the dilemma of growth. A response to Warlenius (2023),” Ecological Economics 220: 108089, doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.108089.
Richardson, K. et al. (2023) “Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries,” Science Advances 9(37): eadh2458, doi:10.1126/sciadv.adh2458.
Schmelzer, M. (2023) “From Luddites to limits? Towards a systematization of growth critiques in historical perspective,” Globalizations 20(3): 447–464, doi:10.1080/14747731.2022.2106044.
Trainer, T. (2021) “What does Degrowth mean? Some comments on Jason Hickel’s ‘A few points of clarification’,” Globalizations 1–5, doi:10.1080/14747731.2020.1860621.
Warlenius, R. H. (2023) “The limits to degrowth: Economic and climatic consequences of pessimist assumptions on decoupling,” Ecological Economics 213: 107937, doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.107937.
Warlenius, R. H. (2025) “Decoupling pessimism and the dilemma of growth. A reply to Jackson et al (2024),” Ecological Economics 232: 108580, doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2025.108580.