Introduction
Two weeks ago more than 2000 people gathered in the halls of the European Parlament to discuss Beyond Growth. The Beyond Growth Conference 2023 was initiated and organized by Members of the European Parliament; a collaborative effort between The Greens/EFA, The Left, S&D, Renew Europe, EPP and NI made this event possible. Partner organisations were the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, ZOE Institute for Future Economics, New Economics Foundation, The Club of Rome, Degrowth, Friends of Earth Europe, Finance Watch, European Trade Union Institute and the European Environmental Bureau among others.
This is not the first time a conference on the theme of moving beyond GDP growth in the EU is happening. In 2018 the Post Growth Conference took place, but it was a small event with a few selected guests and speakers. This conference was a multi-stakeholder event aiming to discuss and co-create policies for sustainable prosperity in Europe with the purpose to challenge conventional policy-making in the EU. It is even stated on the website “to move away from the harmful focus on sole economic growth”.
The conference was open for anyone to register and many seats were left for civil society. Partner organisation representatives were of course there, but many of the conference participants were students or activists (many times both) who had heard about the conference from their professors or in other networks.
In other words, this conference wasn’t an event with a formal, stiff and traditional seriousness, but rather it was a free gathering with open-minded people seriously seeking new pathways and who truly want to be part of the change. It was said to be the Woodstock of system change. And it truly felt like it! The conference was also entirely free and I would say, if you want to be an inclusive organiser where anyone can join, it has to be free! Priced conferences are not good places for visions for the future and better policy-making!
Personally, I was there as a representative of the newly established organisation Wellbeing Economy Alliance Sweden! The hub is for anyone who would like to engage and volunteer for wellbeing economics in Sweden. If you are based in Sweden, please feel free to reach out, become a part of our core hub or follow us on social media!
Structure of the conference
The three day conference had 7 plenary sessions, 20 focus panels and 4 policy labs. Each session was chaired by one of the co-organising Members of the European Parliament. Besides the main programme, selected participants could co-create policy recommendations on topics related to current policy processes. These interactive policy labs happened at the Chatham House. Personally, I never had the time to go there.
The plenary sessions were long. About 4-6 speakers with 10 minutes each followed by internal discussions before questions from the audience were let in. For someone like me working with mental health and wellbeing, more breaks and shorter speeches would have been preferable.
The days normally started with a plenary for all, had focus panels after lunch and ended with a plenary for all. In that way the majority of the content of the conference (from what I felt) was seen by most participants. For the focus panels, one had to choose and register before the conference, but no one really paid attention to who joined which session.
But I can tell you, it was intense, a few breaks for toilet visits and food, but otherwise it was a run to be able to be in time for each session (since they were all so interesting!).
Who were the speakers?
Several of the speakers came from academia, think-tank groups, non-profit organisations, activism and so on. There was no clear commercial agenda or private corporate interest in place, which I found delightful since many sustainability conferences today are way too much influenced by private interests (from my perspective). To discuss how to move beyond GDP growth will of course require an inclusive approach, including the private sector, but it was very rewarding to listen to people with such a clear and transparent agenda - many times with point of views simply just based on their own academic research.
There were many known and familiar profiles from the wellbeing economy and the post growth movement such as:
Timothée Parrique - researcher at the School of Economics and Management of Lund University.
Kate Raworth - Senior Associate, Oxford University. Founder of Doughnut Economics.
Professor Tim Jackson - Director of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP).
Professor Jason Hickel - Institute for Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
Dr. Vendana Shiva - Physicist, social and environmental activist, ecofeminist and anti-globalisation author.
Professor Robert Constanza - Ecological Economics at the Institute for Global Prosperity, University College London.
Sandrine Dixson-Declève - Co-president of the Club of Rome.
Professor Giorgos Kallis - Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Barcelona.
Professor Dr. Maja Göpel - Director of Research at The New Institute.
There were also other skilled speakers who brought many interesting perspectives who may not always be associated with beyond GDP such as:
Professor Johan Rockström - the Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Professor at the Institute of Earth and Environmental Science at Potsdam University.
Professor Joseph Stiglitz - Columbia University. He is also the co-chair of the High-Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress at the OECD, and the Chief Economist of the Roosevelt Institute.
Adelaïde Charlier - Belgian climate justice and human rights activist.
Professor Rutger Hoekstra - Associate Professor at the Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University. Leader of the WISE Horizons, a large European project, which is pursuing metrics and policies to enhance Wellbeing, Inclusion and Sustainability (WISE).
Professor Florence Jany-Catrice - University of Lille, member of the Research Center Clersé (UMR 8019), and Richard B. Fisher Member, School of Social Science (2020-21), Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.
Ann Pettifor - Director of PRIME- Policy Research in Macroeconomics.
Corinna Schlombs - Associate Professor of History at Rochester Institute of Technology.
Please have a look at the full speakers list here and don’t miss out on some of the most popular speeches below!
Take Aways
Beyond GDP means different things for different people, some are convinced degrowth fans which literally means a decline in GDP while other mean that degrowth doesn’t necessarily mean a decline GDP rather a shrinking economy (which might logically work if we don’t measure GDP) and others prefer not to use degrowth and rather focus on wellbeing economy.
That GDP growth is a bad metric for development is commonly understood, but how to move beyond it, what the goal, the roadmap and narrative should be is unclear.
Green Growth is still viewed among EU members and commissionaires as a must for development, even though conference participants would probably disagree.
The climate and environmental perspective was strong. Also some colonial and social perspectives, but how to focus on the things that matters to people on an individual basis, such as purpose, existential questions or happiness were not as present.
There is a lot of work being done on how to measure welfare beyond GDP, there’s plenty of metrics and current work happening in the EU, OECD and in other places on how to mainstream these and develop the indicators - but the question remains how these measures can guide policy-making and budgeting to a larger extent.
There were few speakers who went through financial and fiscal policy - especially how they tend to fail and why GDP for the sake of economics is not very effective! The few that did were my highlights of the conference. Beyond GDP will probably not happen without mainstream economics participating in the discussion.
My wishlist moving forward for the EU
Beyond Growth Conference (BGC) to be established on a UN level. Moving Beyond GDP needs to be a global approach since our economic system is inter-connected and needs a geo-political perspective.
Reforms and policy-making for economic education and degrees. We are currently educating thousands of economic students who are trained in neo-classical economics without even considering that GDP is not a stated fact. It’s man-made and can be remade.
Harmonious and standardised implementation of welfare measures and indicators attached to policy-making and budget on a national level. Indicators must guide future policy-making - not GDP.
Research and suggestions for implementation of Universal Basic Income for all - no one should be left behind when we’re transitioning to a completely different economic system where labour and jobs will look completely different.
A roadmap for a just and climate friendly down scaling and de-coupling of the financial market from the welfare system.
I could go on and on, but the major question is not to what extent GDP can grow without emissions and material extractions (green growth) rather how to decouple socio-ecological prosperity from GDP growth? That is the question that should guide research and policy-making moving forward!
Speeches to watch
Here’s a list of selected speeches of 10 minutes each but you can also watch the other speeches as a part of the full plenary discussions available on Club of Rome YouTube channel or GreensEFA YouTube channel!