Degrowth for Beginners | Nonprofit Quarterly | Civic News. Empowering Nonprofits. Advancing Justice.

"Yet growth often fails to make societies happier or more fulfilled. Indeed, a 2023 The Club of Rome report noted, "GDP [gross domestic product] growth after a certain point has not created greater wellbeing, but has instead increased inequality between the richest and the poorest, created social tensions and led to environmental tipping points." The United States, for example, scores far lower on the United Nations Human Development Index-which measures quality of life, especially in education and health-than many other ostensibly less wealthy countries."

"Degrowth invites people to reimagine prosperity altogether. Instead of adopting the dominant paradigm of constant expansion, scaling, and efficiency as an end in and of itself, degrowth principles encourage people to center collective wellbeing, equity, belonging, deep democracy, and ecological balance in human and economic activity. It takes seriously the notion that the economy, a word rooted in the two Greek words eco (home) and nomos (management), should be about managing our collective home."

Degrowth is the intentional downscaling of global resource consumption to achieve ecological sustainability and social justice. The current economy converts nature into material goods and waste, and the pursuit of continuous GDP growth accelerates resource depletion and pollution. Economic growth beyond a certain point fails to increase wellbeing, exacerbates inequality, and produces social tensions and environmental tipping points. Some high-income countries score lower on human development measures than less wealthy nations. Degrowth reframes prosperity to prioritize collective wellbeing, equity, belonging, deep democracy, and ecological balance, and draws on long-standing relational practices from Global South and Indigenous communities.

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