08.03.2010

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Prosperity without GrowthTim Jackson12th January 2010

• Growth is unsustainable

• De-growth is unstable

The Dilemma of Growth

GDP = Labour x LPGDP = Labour x LPGDP = Labour x LPGDP = Labour x LP

Source: Prosperity without growth, Tim Jackson (London, Earthscan 2009)

x 130 improvementx 130 improvementx 130 improvementx 130 improvement

CO2/$ < zero by 2100?CO2/$ < zero by 2100?CO2/$ < zero by 2100?CO2/$ < zero by 2100?

Life Expectancy at Birth

IcelandNorway

Ireland

Japan

United StatesUnited Kingdom

New ZealandMaltaChile

Bahrain

Costa RicaCuba

Russian Federation

China

Gabon

South Africa

Botswana

India

Swaziland

Mozambique

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 25,000 30,000 35,000 40,000 45,000 50,000

GDP per capita (PPP $2005)

Lif

e e

xp

ec

tan

cy

at

bir

th (

ye

ars

)

Households

Firms

IncomeInvestment Novelty

Price

Spending

Increasing

productivity

The Engine of Growth• shareholder value• creative destruction

• status consumption • a life without shame

Credit08/03/2010

Diagnosis

• Society is locked into an ‘iron cage’ through two mutually reinforcing dynamics: 1) economic structure and 2) social logic: economic growth is served by these dynamics, but wellbeing is not

• Government itself is conflicted: its role in protecting macro-economic stability contrasts with its role in defending other social goods.

08/03/2010

Another world is possible

• economic structure• social logic• governance

Prognosis Another Economic Engine?

Ecological Investment

• poverty alleviation

• low carbon transition

• ecosystem maintenance

Ecological Enterprise

• treading lightly

• supporting communities

• providing livelihoods

08.03.2010

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Ecological Enterprise

Low-carbon, resource efficient economic activities that provide employment, support communities and contribute to human flourishing

Productivity growth in Europe 1985 Productivity growth in Europe 1985 Productivity growth in Europe 1985 Productivity growth in Europe 1985 ---- 2005200520052005

Another Economic Engine?

Prosperity consists in our ability to flourish as human beings – within the ecological limits of a finite planet.

The challenge for society is to create the conditions in which this is possible.

Another Prosperity?

‘… sites for the cultivation of a common citizenship, so that people from different walks of life encounter one another and so acquire enough of a.. sense of a shared life that we can meaningfully think of one another as citizens in a common venture’

Michael Sandel, June 2009

Another Prosperity?

Ecologicalenterprise

People

Ecosystems

Ecological

investment Ecosystem

services

Participation Capabilities

ecologicalproductivity

improvedflourishing

Economics for a finite planet

http://www.earthscan.co.uk/pwg

‘The crisis doesn’t only make us free to imagine other models, another future, another world. It obliges us to do so.’

President Sarkozy, September 2009