European Newsletter - Jan'25

Czech Republic

The Czech Degrowth team is happy to share some of their biggest achievements for 2024! The numbers look as follows:

• Lectures, workshops, discussions: 51 presentations for 1,570 people
• Social networks: Facebook: 38,500 accounts; Instagram: 138,000 accounts
• Website (external link): 7,200 unique visitors
• Monthly newsletter: 1,900 subscribers
• Degrowth Summer School: first year for 23 people
• Degrowth Academy: second year for 22 people
• Reading club: 6 meetings and 50 participants in total
• Media outputs: 11 articles and interviews
• Regular donors: 103 monthly donors
• Work done: 1.0 full-time employment + rest volunteer work

You can find out more in our news in Czech (external link).

Some other resource in English are our Poster (external link) from the Pontevedra degrowth conference and this folder (external link), where you will find additional information related to our contributions to there (including an hour-long recording of the presentation of our Czech team).

For any further question on how these impressive numbers were achieved, you can contact the Czech team directly an email nerust@nazemi.cz (external link)

Lisbon, Portugal

Thinking about the Future Generations Means to Act Now: Exploring Possible Futures Beyond Growth

On December 16, the Portuguese Parliament (Assembleia da República) hosted the first Portuguese Beyond Growth Conference at its Auditorium António de Almeida Santos in Lisbon, co-organized by OIKOS (external link), Rede para o Decrescimento (external link), and ZERO (external link), member of the Iberian Hub of Wellbeing Economy Alliance.
The focus was to debate a future beyond growth inspired by the Welsh experience of the Future Generations Act, approved in 2015, that obliges each public body listed in the Act to work for the improvement of the economic, social, environmental and cultural wellbeing of Wales, according to its seven wellbeing goals.

The event was attended by over 80 participants, including academics, politicians, members of ONGs and civil society.

During the morning session, the first Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, Sophie Howe (2016 – 2023) reported on the rationale of the Well-being of Future Generations Act (external link), its implementation, difficulties and successes.
It was followed by Susana Fonseca, Vice-President of ZERO, who outlined the project of a future Portuguese law to protect the interests of Future Generations.
Filipe Martins, director of the Jesuit European Social Center and campaigner for the Future Generations Initiative (external link) on the European level, gave an update on their lobbying for an Inter-institutional Declaration on the Rights of Future Generations, the nomination of a European Future Generations Commissioner and a Better Regulation Guidelines to include intergenerational justice as a key principle for any law-making.

A roundtable with politicians and members of parliament, moderated by João José Fernandes, President of OIKOS, discussed current political initiatives that are still focused on the short-term and particular issues and political struggles between parties. These discussions always feel insufficient for the degrowth movement.

After the lunch break, Morena Hanbury Lemos, doctoral researcher in Ecological Economics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and part of the REAL project led by Julia Steinberger, Jason Hickel and Giorgos Kallis, gave a lecture on how colonial patterns are reproduced in today’s global economy and set the stage for the discussion about possible futures Beyond Growth that must include global justice.

The following panel discussion was moderated by Hans Eickhoff, member of the Portuguese Degrowth Network and doctoral researcher in Human Ecology at the Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences (CICS.NOVA), Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities (NOVA FCSH), and focused on the problematic of the growth paradigm, the imaginary of possible futures, and possible obstacles on the way to get there.

Carlos Antunes, Professor in Geospatial Engineering at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (FCUL), specialized in Geodesy, Hydrography and Sea Level Variation, underscored that the current crisis must not be understood only as a climate, environmental and biodiversity crisis, but also as crisis of the paradigm of the global social and economic model that is very much based on excessive energy dependence and unsustainable consumption. Thus, the transition to a cheap, available and green model of resources and energy use becomes difficult because the annual rates of change and the global environmental footprint are incompatible with the targets required in a short period. Patrícia Melo, Professor at the Department of Economics at ISEG (Lisbon School of Economics and Management), University of Lisbon and researcher in the ISEG Research in Economics and Management R&D unit, confessed her sense of responsibility towards the generations of Economics and Management students that are future policy-makers and managers, trying to make the curriculum more plural and critical of the models for organizing the economy and its relationship with the social-ecological systems in which it operates.

Paula Cardoso, graduated in International Relations, journalist, and founder of the digital community Afrolink, advocated that, in response to the impossible present we are living in, overwhelmed by economic and financial indicators and drained of humanity, futures beyond growth are the only possible future where people’s lives are worth more than corporate profits.

Finally, Jorge Pinto, member of the left ecological LIVRE party and graduated in Environmental Engineering with a PhD in Social and Political Philosophy, returned to the initial question considering that futures - be they the people who are yet to be born or the different futures we can create - are constantly being born which means that being born implies growing up, but this leads to questions: how do we grow, how much, when?

The panel discussion generated a lively Q&A session that was continued with food and drinks in the lounge after the closing lecture by Inês Cosme. Inês graduated in Environmental Engineering with a PhD in Globalization Studies and works as Assistant Professor at Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities (NOVA FCSH) and consultant on corporate sustainability strategies. In her talk, Inês explored principles and policy proposals for a future beyond growth that will require changing our mental models and should be based on reduced consumption and advertising, a localized cooperative and community-orientated economy at the service of Nature, a universal basic income, and the achievement of wellbeing instead of growth.

Different cities in Europe, January 18-19th
Join the streets to protest against fascism, climate chaos, genocide, and war https://thesurgeinternational.net/ (external link)

Oslo [NO], June 24-27th
The conference ISEE-Degrowth 2025 (external link) is jointly organised as the 18th Conference of the International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE) and the 11th International Degrowth Conference. Still a while until this takes place in June 2025 Call for abstracts now opened till 20th of January

Madrid [ES], Sept 26-27th
Beyond Growth España Conference: Toward a just degrowth

• September 26th in the Spanish Parliament (Congreso de los Diputados)
• September 27th: Social Forum - Make hope possible

If you like what you read and want to further help building this network and bringing Degrowth to all the corners of our society, then you should join the International Degrowth Network and the tool where we work Matrix!

Join as an individual (external link)

Join as an association (external link)

Feel free to share this email with other people or groups that may be interested. Thank you so much in advance!

If you have any other questions or proposals relevant to the European degrowth context, you can contact us at europe@degrowth.net (external link).

We wish you a nice month!

Your degrowther European circle