Proceedings of the First International Conference on Economic De-Growth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity
Paris, 18-19 April 2008

Full proceedings (320 pages - English) can be downloaded at:
http://events.it-sudparis.eu/degrowthconference/en/appel/Degrowth%20Conference%20-%20Proceedings.pdf

Table of Contents

• Goals of the conference........................................................................................................... 5
• Introductory words to the conference ...................................................................................... 6
• Scientific committee................................................................................................................. 7
• CONFERENCE’ ORIGINAL CALL FOR ABSTRACTS..................................................... 9
• Program ............................................................................................................................. 10

Historical panel : from growth critics to degrowth

• Introduction to Georgescu-Roegen and Degrowth ................................................................ 14
• Why environmental sustainability can most probably not be attained with growing production . 18
• Conceptual roots of degrowth............................................................................................... 24
• Macroscopic rebound effects as argument for economic degrowth ........................................ 29
• Decrecimiento sostenible– sustainable degrowth.................................................................... 37
• Les services ne sont pas « la » solution à la crise écologique .................................................. 42

Special applications

• Increasing solid waste flows and the emergence of new transnationals ...................................48
• Le mythe des effets positifs de la vitesse en agglomération .................................................... 53
• Gastronomic Sciences: Slow Food Revolution versus Gene Revolution ................................. 60
• Decroissance des procédés Haber-Bosch ........................................................................... 65
• Enabling degrowth at the neighbourhood level. Analysis of the cohousing movement ............. 68
• Tourisme et Décroissance : de la critique à l’utopie ? ........................................................... 78
• Gold unsustainability............................................................................................................ 87
  

Second panel session
New indicators

• What will be the indicators for tomorrow?........................................................................... 91
• Economic de-growth analysed in Georgescu-Roegen's theoretical framework of the
•  Economic Process with special reference to the System of Accounts for Global 
•   Entropy Production, SAGE-P. ....................................................................................... 102
• Bonheurs de la décroissance ............................................................................................ 110
• A Simplified Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare for France, 1980-2006 .................... 113

Degrowth or steady-state ?

• Growth and sustainable development ................................................................................ 119
• Economic De-growth vs. the Steady State Economy: complements or contradiction .......... 125
• GDP growth, consumption and investment composition: feasible transition paths
•  towards energy sustainability ........................................................................................... 131
  

Debund effect

• Country carbon rationing .................................................................................................. 137
• De-Growth for Earth Survival............................................................................................ 143

Southern perspectives

• Overcoming Contradictions between Growth and Sustainability: Institutional
•  Innovation in the BRICS ................................................................................................. 147
• Is the economy (de)materializing? A comparison of Germany, China and Spain ................. 156

Roundtable : from academia and civil society to policy

• Contribution from italian civil society................................................................................. 165

Third panel session
Sharing work

• An Environmental Kuznets Curve Analysis of Italy: A scale approach for sustainable
•  de-growth.......................................................................................................................166
• The Basic Income, a factor of degrowth .......................................................................... 174
• Career guidance and de-growth ...................................................................................... 177
• A human rights based political economy for a de-growth based equitable development .... 182

Production degrowth

• The Precautionary Principle as a Framework for Sustainable Design: Attempts to
•  Counter the Rebound Effects of Production and Consumption...................................... 187
• Technology and the Growth Problematique .................................................................. 196

Redistribution

• Globalization, localization and the cost of complexity - a network approach................... 199

What statutes for economic actors ?

• Lose less instead of win more: The failure of decoupling and perspectives of a 
•  redirected competition in a de-growth economy .......................................................... 208
• De-growth as unlocking socio-technical systems : an application to mass motorization.... 213
• Towards a « degrowth society » - the labor question in problematics of transition .......... 216

Culture change panel

• Why are we growth – addicted ? The hard way towards degrowth in the 
•  involutionary western development path ...................................................................... 220
• Degrowth vs. sustainable development: how to open the space of ontological 
•  negotiation? ............................................................................................................... 227
• Less is more: The influence of aspirations and priming on well-being ............................. 233
• Psychological barriers to de-growth: values mediate the relationship between
•  well-being and income................................................................................................ 236
• The anthropological stakes of degrowth ....................................................................... 243
• The finality of degrowth and its relation with justice....................................................... 248
• Environmental Politics and Actual Degrowth. The issue of a sustainable financing
•  of care activities, public goods and commons. .............................................................253
  

Change of economics institutions ?

• On the way towards a degrowth society: a review of transformation scenarios and 
• desirable visions of the future ............................................................................................. 258
• Searching for a Shared Imaginary - A Systemic Approach to Degrowth and Politics............ 269
• Systems challenges: profit, growth, and speed: results from the SYSCONS study ............... 272
• The De-Growth Economy and Lifestyles ........................................................................... 282
• L’Asem, un outil pour aujourd’hui ? .................................................................................. 286

Democracy for degrowth

• Let’s liberate our economies! From offer back to demand.................................................. 291
• Sufficient, Closed-loop Agricultural Production in a Degrowth Economy............................. 295
• La décroissance soutenable face à la question du « comment ? » - Une remise en
•  perspective par les processus de transition et leurs conditions de réalisation ...................... 308
• Why denial and inaction?................................................................................................... 314
• Final Declaration of the Conference ............................................................................ 317
• Participants List ............................................................................................................ 319