Degrowth and the Circular Economy: Incorporation that Makes a Better World Rafiatu Abdul-Salam, Ghana

Degrowth and the Circular Economy: Incorporation that Makes a Better World

By Rafiatu Abdul-Salam, Ghana

Introduction

Social movements like degrowth over the past few years have been used as a conceptual tool for analysis to debunk the notion of generating wealth by just growing at the detriment of people’s welfare (Millward and Takhar, 2019). Degrowth, which is an evolving research field and a social movement, has its origins in France, where it was inspired and promoted by French academics and activists. Originating in the early twenty-first century, it had the intention of attaining social and environmental sustainability through a deliberate communal restraint in production and consumption (Demaria et. al., 2013). It focuses on restructuring the society with new values through downscaling, redistribution, and production and consumption stabilisation. This essay will examine degrowth as a movement that fosters cultural and ecological transitions, as well as how this collection of transformational efforts varies from mainstream development. The essay begins by discussing the background of degrowth as a movement, considering the places and people that form development discourse narratives. Then it looks at how it addresses the ecological and economic challenges resulting from growth to suggest alternatives or remedies to these critical developmental issues. It concludes by criticising degrowth and suggesting circular economy as a type of synergy that would create a more sustainable and equitable society.

Background of degrowth

"Decroissance," which implies "reduction," had been invented in France about 1972 to describe a new sociocultural route and afterward mentioned throughout writings by eminent scholars such as Amar (1976), Gorz (1977), and Georgescus-Roegen (1979) following Meadow’s Report to the Club of Rome, named, "The Limits of Growth" (Demaria, Schneider, Sekulova and Martinez-Alier, 2013). The term became popular in the 2000s in France as a mantra in collective actions (Gerber, 2020). Its English term Degrowth was created during the initial global symposium on degrowth held in the French capital in 2008. And has stayed and attained a lot of interest in academic circles ever since. Following the Paris symposium, other symposiums were organised in Barcelona (2010), Venice (2012), and Leipzig (2014) (Demaria et. al., 2013). According to Sekulova, Kallis, Rodríguez-Labajos and Schneidr (2013), degrowth is

a:

“Collaborative and deliberate procedure designed to attain an equal downscaling of total ability to generate and use, as well as the function of markets and economic transactions” (Sekulova et. al., 2012, p. 1). Degrowth encourages economies with reduced metabolic activities but with distinct structures and functions whiles problematising growth which is the core of capitalism as becoming a specific method of defining a decent society, based on the premise that more market transactions equal more needs being addressed which is detrimental to the environment and long-term wellbeing (Gerber, 2020). Consequently, degrowth has become one of the most recent additions to the Development discourse. The English version was made notable through academic journals written by Giorgios Kallis, Martinez Alier, and a host of others.

Ecological degrowth

In the early 1970s, environmental concerns resulting from reckless exploitation for growth came to the fore (Sachs, 2010). By scrutinising the extent to which it can satisfy these wants, the environment is under pressure to provide and sustain mankind's unquenchable needs these past years. Without an alternative to the impacts, industries rely largely on the environment for their supply of energy and input for products which could result in loss. However, finding a way to safeguard the ecosystem prompted the creation of the concept of sustainable development referred to as an approach that satisfies the present required needs without jeopardising the unborn descendant’s ability to fulfil their personal desires according to the Brundtland report (1987) (cited in Keeble, 1988). This explanation may seem pleasant, but it is virtually difficult to implement. Green energy technologies such as wind, solar, and other renewables, are now seen as a solution to the environmental concerns connected with fossil fuels by proponents of sustainable development. However, the British economist William Stanley Jevons demonstrated in 1865 that improvements in technology that made coal more efficient in the UK led to an increase in coal consumption among sectors (Clark and Foster, 2001). This means that even if we develop technologies that consume less power and resources, their effectiveness will increase demand, cancelling out the benefits of those technologies. Thus, it’s obvious from this instance that technology and inventions are incapable of reducing indiscriminate ecological destruction; at best, they decrease the growth limit (Demaria et al., 2012). The degrowth movement believes that the extraction of materials necessary to service the economy's economic purpose, like dematerialisation, should be reduced to zero (MartinezAlier, 2010). This necessitates doing more or producing additional along with fewer power or resources till we are able to create devoid of neither power nor resources (Luke, 2010). This supports the idea that we should cut or substantially limit the number of materials we take from mines and oil wells, as well as the pace at which unwholesome gases are released into the environment.

Economic degrowth

In today's world, it's unusual for a government to address its people without addressing economic growth. As a result, environmental pressure must be used to build an economy with terrible consequences. GDP is one of the most often cited indicators of a country's economic success (Ross, 2017). GDP measures an economy's output, revenue, and spending. However, it exposes nothing about the distribution of development, fails to account for unpaid domestic work and voluntary activities, and, most importantly, fails to illuminate the social and environmental repercussions of growth. As a result, proponents of degrowth advocate for a comprehensive measure to account for an economy's growth. Degrowth advocates and researchers advocate for multiple standards and inclusive evaluation of the overall market, based on the development of several viable measures of societal, intellectual, ecological, and financial progress (Zografos and Howarth, 2008; Shmelev and Rodríguez, 2009,). Since GDP growth is linked to greater compressions on environmental issues, biodiversity, and the loss of human living standards at resource borders, some degrowth advocates believe that leaders of the economy should go beyond GDP by establishing a set of principles and guidelines to limit the reduction of energy and materials (Martinez-Alier, 2010). One of the most significant aspects of poverty alleviation is economic growth (Roemer and Gugerty, 2007). Economic growth is often recognised as one of the most essential variables in poverty reduction and it is presumed as a vital development goal that may be met through economic growth and income distribution, resulting in human happiness and wellbeing. Many governments have attempted but failed to reduce poverty through various 107

economic interventions and techniques. India for example has expanded its wealth by 211 percent over the past 15 years (Sinha, 2015). Various polls have asserted the wealthiest ten percent of the population owns 370 times as much as the poorest ten percent (Rukimi, 2017). On the other hand, the growth distribution will offer a different picture. It is assumed the problem is unequal wealth distribution rather than growth. Further, there is also no guarantee that economic progress will lead to happiness and well-being. The World Happiness Report in 2012 states “the international economic powerhouse USA has made stunning economic and technological growth over the previous half-century without improvements in the people’s self-reported happiness” (cited in Helliwell, Layard and Sachs, 2012, p. 3). This is consistent with Richard Easterlin's (1974) research on the link between wealth and residents’ satisfaction in his famous "Easterlin Paradox." In contrast to persons living within a country, his study shows that economies with higher per capita income have a negative relationship with residents' self-reported happiness (Easterlin, 1974). Even though succeeding academics disagreed with these beliefs. Degrowth proponents align themselves with modern scientific studies of happiness and how it affects individuals and communities to this end. Friendship, family time, sex, and the daily effort to attain fulfilment from these and other desirable activities (Helliwell et al., 2012) are more convincing measures of happiness than economic development indicators.

Critiques of degrowth

It has been argued that degrowth movements have failed to consider the quantitative (how much growth) versus qualitative (benefits, both positive and negative) aspects of growth, as well as how they affect the environment or nature and the resulting health issues (Schwartzman, 2012). In this sense, degrowths are so fixated on the downsides that they forget to conduct a full analysis of the entire system. The focus should be on the type of ecological growth that will be sustainable for humanity, while also designing barriers to mitigate its negative health consequences. Degrowth critics have criticised the present regime's credo of reduced consumption, stating that "fewer resources corresponds [to] less pollution" is not always the case. As a result, it is ineffective in moderating environmental stresses. This argument comes from the uncertainty that might arise because of the determinant and manner of assessing consumption, which is either physical/quantity or monetary/value (Van den Bergh, 2015). It all comes down to how one can quantify consumption and the methods and units that will be utilised to do so.

When it comes to growth concerns, Bonaiuti (2012) and others say that the need for social limitations of economic expansion is the way forward on several grounds. According to David Schwartzman, the communal limit of economic progress has been unsuccessful in justifying the many discrepancies in company globalisation because it does not factor in the rising population of the world's city centres and the problems that come with it, as well as how governments are designing procedures to address these issues. The adoption of "Green Urbanism," for example, is one of the techniques adopted by city governments to mitigate the increasing threat of CO3 (Schwartzman, 2012). As a result, limiting expansion will have a significant influence on the needs of these enormous metropolitan populations.

The Circular Economy

Figure1. The Circular Economy. Source: https://biomimicry.org/how-i-found-the-circular-economy-biomimicry-and-the-power-of-design/

For a more environmentally sustainable planet, the focus should be placed not just on creating and consuming less, or on solving poverty challenges, but also on restorative product and material reuse and recycling. Recycling items and materials create jobs while conserving energy and reducing resource consumption and waste. To achieve this, the European Union, as well as numerous corporations and national governments throughout the globe, which includes China, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Finland, should focus on the circular economy idea (cited in Korhonen, Honkasalo, and Seppälä, 2018). As stated by these experts, circular economy is a societal manufacturing process that optimises utility generated by the unidirectional energy and resource productivity cycle of life. To attain this, emphasis must be on utilising the recurring material instabilities, geothermal power, and tumbling power flows (Korhonen et. al., 2018). As an outcome, a strong circular economy supports all three aspects of long-term sustainability (social, economic, and ecological). Thus, in a circular economy, ecological cycles are utilised in market phases through preserving its inherent procreation capacity, limiting output circulation to the degree to which the earth endures (Korhonen et. al., 2018).

Conclusion

The essay discussed the origin of degrowth as a movement, how its tackles the economic and ecological challenges birthed by growth. Also, it discussed the critique of degrowth and an alternative that promotes long-term sustainability. The degrowth movement propositions are critical to comprehending the environmental harm caused by mankind's desire for energy and material wants. However, these solutions are insufficient to address global concerns. As a result, a combination of effective degrowth measures and circular economy initiatives should be pursued. These movements can complement the State to achieve the sustainable world we envision through principles of great “governance” especially “in areas of limited statehood” (Börzel and Risse, 2010). That would be the only way to save mankind from the looming catastrophe caused by our insatiable need to amass wealth.

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