Earth vs Growth | Economic Observatory Blog by Tim Jackson
Carbon efficiency is improving, but far too slowly to offset climate change. We need to get beyond our relentless pursuit of growth, writes Tim Jackson for the Economics Obersavatory ahead of COP26. Only a few economists – and even fewer politicians – have challenged the primacy of economic growth. But being frightened to scare the horses is no way to win the race against climate change.
Book launch: Wie wollen wir leben?—Tim Jackson in conversation with Barbara Unmüßig
On 18 October 2021, Tim Jackson talks to Barbara Unmüßig, director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, about the German edition of his latest book Post Growth—’Wie wollen wir leben?’ (Oekom, 2021). The book is not just a manifesto for system change, but an invitation to rekindle a deeper conversation about the nature of the human condition.
Tackling growth dependency—the case of adult social care | Report and Briefing
Paper by Christine Corlet Walker and Tim Jackson, presenting a systematic approach to identifying, analysing and transforming growth dependencies in the welfare state. Using adult social care as the case study, the paper explores how growing demand, rising costs and rent seeking can create growth dependencies.
A Canopy of Hope
Wangari Maathai’s is just one of the many stories that have brought inspiration to Tim (and to countless others, of course) in the last decades. So it was to her and to others that he turned, when he sat down to write Post Growth – life after capitalism, which has just been published by Polity.
Inside Impact Investing | Triodos Podcast
Impact investing is a driving force in the transition to a more inclusive and sustainable world. In this podcast series, Tim Jackson and Hans Stegeman discuss the shortcomings of our current economic system and explore how the financial sector can play a crucial role in providing the capital needed to realise real and profound change.
Circular Metabolism | Podcast
The Circular Metabolism podcast is hosted by Aristide Athanassiadis from Metabolism of Cities. In his podcast he interviews thinkers, researchers, policy makers and practitioners to better understand the metabolism of our cities and how to reduce their environmental impact in a socially just and context-specific way.
Imagining Life after Capitalism | FreshEd podcast with Tim Jackson
In this podcast Will Brehm and Tim Jackson talk about the power of ideas and imagine what life might look like after capitalism. In his new book, Post Growth: Life after capitalism, Tim shows the limits of the dominant metaphors used to explain our current world and argues for new metaphors to help imagine a sustainable, just, and creative future.
Video | Ökonomie jenseits der Schwäbischen Hausfrau
Conversation with Mathew D. Rose as part of the event series “Ökonomie jenseits der Schwäbischen Hausfrau”, hosted by Brave New Europe, Helle Panke eV and the Rosa Luxemburg Stfitung. More details via the Brave New Europe website.
Welfare systems without economic growth | Review paper
Welfare systems across the OECD face many combined challenges, with rising inequality, demographic changes and environmental crises likely to drive up welfare demand in the coming decades. Economic growth is no longer a sustainable solution to these problems. It is therefore imperative that we consider how welfare systems will cope with these challenges in the absence of economic growth. This paper by Christine Corlet Walker, Angela Druckman together with Tim Jackson reviews the literature tackling this complex problem.
Energy transition risk: The impact of declining energy return on investment (EROI) | Journal Paper
The TranSim modelling work shows that the negative effects associated with the transition—recession, stagnation, stagflation, increasing inequality and asset stranding—are positively related to the capital intensity of green energy production and reductions in EROI. Policy makers should pay close attention to the overall EROI of the entire energy system when determining energy policy. If significant reductions in EROI are unavoidable, then policy could be used to mitigate some of its negative economic effects.
Worker wellbeing and productivity in advanced economies: Re-examining the link | Journal paper
Labour productivity is a key concept for understanding the way modern economies use resources and features prominently in ecological economics. Ecological economists have questioned the desirability of labour productivity growth on both environmental and social grounds. In this paper we aim to contribute to ongoing debates by focusing on the link between labour productivity and worker wellbeing.
Modelling Transition Risk | Blog
Tim Jackson summarises the recent TRansit project which has pioneered a novel agent-based, stock-flow consistent macro-economic model. Tim discusses the findings from the project and sets them in the context of the Bank of England’s work on ‘transition risk’.
The Nature of Prosperity and the Prosperity of Nature
How can nature writing contribute to the common good, we wanted to know? Could writing about nature ‘help generate a collective and popular politics of conservation and connection’—Foreword to the new CUSP online collection of essays on nature, ecological challenges and connections between people and place: “Nature Writing for the Common Good”.
Ensuring a Post-COVID Economic Agenda Tackles Global Biodiversity Loss | Journal Paper
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused dramatic and unprecedented impacts on both global health and economies. Many governments are now proposing recovery packages to get back to normal, but the 2019 Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Global Assessment indicated that business as usual has created widespread ecosystem degradation. Therefore, a post-COVID world needs to tackle the economic drivers that create ecological disruptions.
Podcast | Curb excess capitalism to save nature |@BBC5Live with Tim Jackson
The possibility that we can live better, healthier and more fulfilling lives without the relentless consumption that damages the planet was one of the points of discussion when BBC presenter Nihal Arthanayake invited CUSP Director Tim Jackson and Policy Exchange analyst Benedict McAleenan to discuss the implications of Sir David’s remarks on Radio 5 Live’s Afternoon Edition today. Good lives don’t have to cost the earth. It’s time for capitalism to recognise that.
The Transition to a Sustainable Prosperity | Journal Paper by Tim Jackson and Peter Victor
This paper presents a stock-flow consistent (SFC) macroeconomic simulation model for Canada. Contrary to the widely accepted view, the results suggest that ‘green growth’ (in the Carbon Reduction Scenario) may be slower than ‘brown growth’. More importantly, we show (in the Sustainable Prosperity Scenario) that improved environmental and social outcomes are possible even as the growth rate declines to zero.
Using critical slowing down indicators to understand economic growth rate variability and secular stagnation | NATURE paper
Global economic stability could be difficult to recover in the wake of the Covid-19, this Nature article finds. Even before the Covid-19 crisis, many of the world’s leading economies were experiencing larger slower growth cycles (recession cycles), suggesting precisely such a period of critical slowing down in the economic system. This analysis suggests that the added weight of the Covid-19 crisis may result in one of the weakest and most unstable recoveries in recorded history for many economies.
Video | How can we build back better after COVID? | Panel discussion w/ Tim Jackson, Mariana Mazzucato, Michael Marmot and David King
Set out to engage MPs across the political spectrum, the online discussion was chaired by Krishnan Guru-Murthy (Channel 4), and expertly deliberated on the prospects for a socially and environmentally just economic recovery—which takes into account not only the need to prevent the worst of climate breakdown, but does so in a way that sustainably strengthens the wellbeing of people. Discussants were CUSP director Prof Tim Jackson, Prof Mariana Mazzucato (UCL), Sir Prof Michael Marmot (UCL) and Sir David King (former Government Chief Scientist).
Biodiversity in a post-growth environment | Evidence submission to the EAC Possible Future Inquiry
In early Spring this year, written submissions were invited to aid the Committee in prioritising its future programme of work. CUSP director Tim Jackson submitted evidence, making the case for necessary innovations in governance and a realistic and responsible approach to the management of the economy: Sustainable Development Goals and the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity cannot be achieved without transformative change, the conditions for which have to be put in place now.
