News

New analysis commissioned by the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission (FFCC) has found that the costs of Britain’s unhealthy food system amount to £268 billion every year – almost equivalent to the total annual UK healthcare spend. The report by Professor Tim Jackson provides the first comprehensive estimate of the food-related cost of chronic disease, ...

Climate change is raising questions about a central tenet of economics: growth. Host Carmel Crimmins is joined by economist Tim Jackson to talk about consumerism and the environment and what “post growth” might look like. Plus, we hear from the person who compiles Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness index.

A profile of Tim Jackson, exploring his recent work and the challenges he’s tackling in the postgrowth field, written by Nick Romeo for the US magazine The New Republic. The piece is based on in-depth conversations and time Romeo spent accompanying Tim.

This study provides an empirical assessment of how effective the WHO’s Global Monitoring Framework for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) has been in improving COVID-19 resilience in low-income countries. Our findings suggest that future global health policies should focus on the link between NCDs and infectious diseases, especially for vulnerable populations.

This paper shows that countries with robust health-related policy targets aimed at reducing non-communicable diseases (NCDs) experienced significantly lower mortality rates during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This commentary responds to a recent article purporting to identify ‘limits to degrowth’. This paper clarifies and sets in context the tensions between growth rates and decoupling rates on which the contested argument is based, disputing the claim that growth is the best way to achieve high rates of decoupling.

Modern economies rely on economic growth for stability and prosperity, but this dependence is ecologically unsustainable. Understanding growth dependency is crucial. This paper proposes a sector-led framework to transform these reliances and disrupt their inevitability.

In this working paper, Anastasia Loukianov, Kate Burningham and Tim Jackson explore young people’s use of shared social understandings to describe what is important in their present lives, to envision their futures, and to respond to the challenges they identify to the realisation of their good lives.

The French Ministry of Economy and Finance hosted a conference on 5 December to discuss the trade-offs between emission reduction policies and economic prosperity. Hosted by Minister Bruno Le Maire, speakers of the day included CUSP director Tim Jackson, Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, and Bill Gates.

We are pleased to announce the release of the audiobook edition of Tim Jackson’s prize-winning “Post Growth—Life After Capitalism”. Through his own narration, Tim brings a personal touch to the profound themes of Post Growth, offering an accessible and engaging experience for audiences to absorb his insights on the go.

Hosted by the former Mayor of Toronto, David Miller, this Cities 1.5 podcast with Tim Jackson is looking to translate the theoretical into the practical, by discussing what cities can do to deliver shared prosperity—not just an unsustainable goal of infinite growth.

#TodayExplained Podcast with Tim Jackson investigating the ailing capitalist model, and ‘why the degrowth movement is having a moment’. Tim recently joined Noel King for her vox.com series on ‘Blame Capitalism’ to discuss the subject, and the emerging relevance of postgrowth economics and policy making.

Rishi Sunak has rolled back the UK’s net zero policies and ripped up decades of cross-party consensus on climate change, Tim Jackson writes. “Perhaps consensus is a commodity yet more fragile than consciousness. But its disappearance carries a tragic sense of political and social loss.”

The New Zealand International Science Festival hosted Prof Jackson this year with the support of the British Council New Zealand and the Pacific. He is joined by the Director of the Centre For Sustainability, Caroline Orchinson, for this evening talk.

While we need less growth to put less demand on the planet’s resources and slow down climate change, CUSP director Tim Jackson argues that we need more art, more plays and works of fiction to bring both sides of that argument to life.

In June this year, Iceland’s Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdóttir hosted the first Wellbeing Economy Forum in Reykjavík. Tim Jackson’s keynote there explored the relationship between the ‘wellbeing economy’ and the ‘growth economy’ teasing out where the logic of wellbeing differs from the logic of growth.

To provide prosperity for all while respecting planetary boundaries, it is imperative we transcend both the conventional growth-centred worldview and our growth-dependent economic and social systems. Tim Jackson explores how to get there.

Growth is unsustainable. But the world beyond growth is frightening. We have built an economy that is dependent on growth. We must learn anew how society works, when the economy is not growing. And we need to confront the impossibility theorems presented to us by those who resist change.

Care is an anathema to capitalism. Its virtues are capitalism’s vices. Its employment-rich foundation for wellbeing is capitalism’s ‘productivity crisis’. Yet, without care we are nothing, our progress is nothing. Without care there is no economy.

Sustainability is the art of living well within the ecological limits of a finite planet. Art is more than an instrument in this project. It’s the very nature of it.A talk delivered by Tim Jackson for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance Ireland Hub, March 2023.

This quantitative study of 4000 adults in the UK found that demographic factors only play a minimal role in explaining the likelihood of people being able to experience flow, suggesting that the rewards of flow may be available across society, irrespective of demographics.

This working paper describes a two-region post-Keynesian stock-flow consistent macroeconomic model set out to analyse macroeconomic implications of a postgrowth transition in advanced countries on the economic and environmental conditions in the rest of the world

On 15-17 May 2023, scientists, politicians, policymakers and civil society organisations are gathering in Brussels for the second Post-Growth Conference for Europe. The event is a cross-party initiative of 20 Members of the European Parliament, supported by a wide-range of partner organisations.

This working paper describes an extension of the stock-flow consistent FALSTAFF model to test the existence of a monetary growth imperative. The extension is designed to simulate the phenomenon known as Baumol’s cost disease which arises from the existence of differential labour productivity rates in a mixed economy.

Tim Jackson was invited onto the Radio NZ Saturday Morning programme with Kim Hill to discus post-growth economics, staggering inequalities legitimated by the trickle-down ideology, and the motivation for his most recent book Post Growth-life after capitalism.

Politicians are wrong to believe that we can only afford decent care in good economic times, Tim Jackson writes. Without health there is no wealth. Without care there is no health. Care is investment. It’s not a luxury consumer item.

What may switching to a green economy mean for the way we live and work and is it compatible with economic growth? Together with his invited guests and co-hosts, Amol Rajan is exploring key questions around money, prosperity and the green economy.

Wealthy countries can create prosperity while using less materials and energy if they abandon economic growth as an objective. This Nature comment piece together with Jason Hickel, Giorgos Kallis, Julia Steinberger and more is laying out the key challenges of a just post-growth transition.

Tim Jackson has been awarded the 2022 Eric Zencey Prize in Ecological Economics for his book Post Growth: Life after Capitalism. The prize celebrates outstanding writing on the environmental limits of a finite planet. 

The siren call of climate-burning expansion bewitches British politics. More of the same will emerge in the autumn statement, Tim Jackson writes. To all intents and purposes, we’re already living in a post-growth world. And it’s time to take that challenge seriously.

In the Cop27 special, Ian Sample speaks to Tim Jackson about the myth of eternal growth, other ways to think about progress and prosperity, and what an economic system in balance with our planetary system might look like.

As the twin storms of economic turmoil and worsening climate change grip the the world, BBC Radio 4 Analysis examines the future of economic growth. Does it offer a route out of economic malaise, or have its benefits reached a ceiling for developed countries?

Gross domestic product remains the predominant measure of progress across the world, it’s time to change that, write Paul Allin, Diane Coyle and Tim Jackson. Amid the global threats posed by climate change, spiralling energy costs, insecure employment and widening inequality, the need to rethink our notion of progress is now an urgent priority.

In an exciting new partnership with Corner Shop Media Productions, Parents for Future UK and Zero Carbon Guildford, CUSP is co-sponsoring a new weekly podcast series hosted by seasoned journalists Babita Sharma and Katy Glassborow. Mum, Will the Planet Die Before I Do? explores our role as parents and carers in tackling the climate crisis.

Roundtable event with Dennis Meadows, Robert Costanza, Kate Raworth, and Tim Jackson; contributing to the theme of post-growth thinking within the EU institutions and across EU Member States.

Through a series of in-depth interviews with care workers Christine Corlet Walker et al explore the impact of investment firms on working conditions and quality of care in UK care homes. Combined with an analysis of care company accounts generating insights into the impacts of financialisation on the UK care sector, the report shows how ...

Whatever the UK government says it’s doing—and not doing—one thing is clear, Tim Jackson writes, the “treasured free-market economy” is never going to compensate for our failure to insulate people’s homes against the cold, and the future against the ravages of climate change.

Strong materialistic values help to maintain consumer capitalism, but they can have negative consequences for individual well-being, for social equity and for environmental sustainability. In this paper, we add to the existing literature on the adverse consequences of materialistic values by highlighting their negative association with engagement in attitudes and actions that support the achievement ...

Long-term care systems across countries within the OECD have undergone a progressive marketisation and financialisation in recent decades. In this Personal View, we argue that the accomapnying neoliberal market values make poor guiding principles for the care sector, identifying the dysfunctional dynamics that arise as a result, and reflecting on the clinical implications of each, ...

BBC World Service’s The Climate Question discussing the implications and interdependencies of the GDP growth imperative.