Abstract

To justify the thesis under the motto “growing by decreasing,” this paper presents
three arguments. First, the evolution of ideas about tackling the environmental side effects
of economic growth went from “limits to growth” to the unifying concept of “beyondgrowth,”
with “green growth” and “degrowth” as two poles of the recent debate. Second,
there are indications of important convergences regarding policy prescriptions in any “green
strategy.” Third, some clues suggest that, despite the convergences, the main challenge is
overcoming the inertia in production-consumption systems by destabilizing the dominant
configuration and inducing a change in consumers’ preferences.

JEL Classification: O33; 038; O44; Q56; Q57; Q58.