Welcome to my website!

This science blog is dedicated to my research on sustainability & postgrowth. You can find my latest ideas and thoughts as well as publications and talks on sustainability science, the discourse on postgrowth & degrowth, ecological economics, corporate responsibility, systems theory and organizational change within the next society. Feedback is always welcome.

Enjoy and feel free to contact or invite me as a speaker!  You can also follow me on Mastodon

Hacking growth!

Photo by Elizabeth Gottwald on Unsplash

tl;dr Recapture the concept of growth by reformulating it as ecological growth, containing expansion and contraction, and a clear focus on ecosystem regeneration

A very long time ago, in the autumn of 2022, Liz Truss was briefly Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. One of her big policy announcements was her desire to ignite the forces of growth – by means of government debt and tax cuts, for example in the form of tax-free banker bonuses.… Read more

Regeneration as a New Economic Policy Paradigm

Regenerative Economy

tl;dr: Regeneration is a forward-looking paradigm focused on increasing  the evolutionary ability of social-ecological systems by including everyone and everything that matters for a viable society

In 2022, Earth Overshoot Day for North America came in March, for Europe mostly in May. The unsustainability of the dominant growth- and exploitation-oriented political-economic system is out in the open, for everyone to see. At the same time, we celebrate some anniversaries this year: 50 years of the first UN conference on the natural environment in Stockholm, 50 years since the publication of “Limits go Growth”, 35 years since the publication of “Our Common Future”, and 30 years since the Earth Summit in Rio.… Read more

The Business Model of Enough

tl;dr: Using social-practice theory to construct a generic business model for sufficiency

We live in an era of unsustainability. Our political-economic systems are producing massive economic wealth on the back of large-scale ecological degradation. Businesses and their business models are important economic value creators and drivers of innovation in any political-economic framework. The challenge to transform society, and thus our political economy, towards sustainability cannot be sufficiently conceptualized without charting the transformation potentials, possibilities and barriers of businesses and their business models.… Read more

Earth must come first

Earth Day was on 22 April and while searching for a bit of background and resources for this day, I came across the Earth Overshoot Day 2021 contest where you can guess, on what date the impacts of human activities will have exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet’s biosphere this year. Next to the realization that some countries like e.g. Austria did already have their national Earth Overshoot Day (it was 7 April 2021), this got me thinking about the need for speed when it comes to reducing humanity’s footprint on the Earth’s biosphere and ecosystems.… Read more

Planetary crises and post-growth organizing

https://unsplash.com/photos/vbFC9BCo95M

tl;dr: special issue on key principles for a sustainable future: frugal abundance, conviviality, care, and open relocalization. 

Envisioning a post-COVID 19 world where societies and organizations can flourish without growth is one of the most difficult tasks facing scholars from all disciplines. This is especially true for those of us who work in management and organization studies, where the status quo assumption remains fixed on economic growth and profit maximization. Together with my colleagues Bobby Banerjee, John Jermier, Ana Maria Peredo, and Robert Perey, we approached this challenge putting together a special issue with ORGANIZATION (SAGE) on “Theoretical perspectives on organizations and organizing in a post-growth era”.… Read more