Inês Cosme, Researcher at CENSE - Center of Environmental and Sustainability Research from FCT NOVA, was interviewed for the program “Biosfera" from RTP, to talk about the results of her doctoral research on the topic of degrowth. Degrowth is a sustainability vision that promotes a form of society that understands itself as a part of the planetary ecological system. This vision assumes that over developed societies need a fundamental transformation in the way economic and social relations are performed currently, to a system that respects a plurality of values and is based on cooperation and solidarity. This requires a significant reduction in our consumption and production patterns.
This doctoral research explored degrowth theory and practices. An analytical framework with 24 criteria was developed to assess the contribution of bottom-up and top-down initiatives to a degrowth transition, and applied to the Portuguese context. The main results were that the Portuguese bottom-up sustainability initiatives (e.g. transition movements, alternative education projects, organic stores, permaculture farms, ecovillages) are mainly contributing to reducing environmental impacts of their activities and exploring new ways of organization (e.g. building cooperatives, experimenting sociocracy). These initiatives have a great potential for pushing a degrowth transition at a niche level in Portugal, but might need different types of support from the state to catapult their potential (e.g. technical, financial, legal). The top-down initiative analysed was the Green Tax Reform process in Portugal, which also showed the potential of economic instruments to promote this kind of transition in a top-down way, if they are designed with that focus instead of a green growth perspective. The main contributions of this work were done at theoretical level, by connecting degrowth vision with democracy and transition studies literature; and at empirical level, with the development of the degrowth assessment tools, which can be used by both practitioners and policy-makers to analyse their contribution to a degrowth transition.
Watch the interview here.
