Growth in Transition

In early September 2014, about 4.000 scientists, activists and artists at the 4th International Conference on Degrowth sent out two messages.

1. Industrialized societies will change, either by disaster or by design. Accelerated resource exploitation and climate change can force societies into a transition. Or they swiftly develop new forms of economic, political and social organization which respect the planetary boundaries.

2. "Degrowth" has become a new social movement which translates scientific insights into cultural change, political change and social practice. Hence, the conference itself was an experiment on the potentials and limits of share economy, commoning and sufficiency.

A team of young scholars and activists from different German research institutes and non-govern- mental organisations prepared the conference. The team of the Wuppertal Institute was partly involved in the preperation of the conference. Scientists from all research groups took part in the conference, presenting and discussing project results.

The publication is a collection of contributions of the Wuppertal Institute to the conference and covers pivotal issues of the degrowth-debate: indicator development (Freyling & Schepelmann), working time reduction (Buhl), feminist theory (Biesecker & Winterfeld), and urban transition (Best).

Vera Freyling, Philipp Schepelmann, Johannes Buhl, Adelheid Biesecker,

Uta von Winterfeld, Benjamin Best:

Growth in Transition

Selected Contributions of the Wuppertal Institute at the 4th International

Conference on Degrowth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity

Impulse zur WachstumsWende no. 8 (March 2015)