tl;dr: Moving beyond growth as a paradigm is vital to unlock a new economy of prosperity, creativity and sustainability – and business has a large role to play
Successful business = economic growth. This equation appears to be a natural law of economics, despite the many downsides of growth (exploitation, inequalities, ecological degradation) and the economic limitations of growth (secular stagnation, lagging productivity, global demographic change, low to negative interest rates). In fact, in can be argued that we already see the first signs of a postgrowth age, with decelerating global growth rates and possible contractions in many countries in the years and decades ahead.
This does not mean an end of growth but rather a transition towards a very different kind of growth: Next Growth.
With my study on ”Next Growth: Re-Imagining Growth“ (published with Zukunftsinstitut in Germany and auf Deutsch, sorry Anglos!), I am taking the growth-critical discourse beyond green growth and postgrowth and reconstruct growth as a combination of societal, ecological and human aspects – the foundations of an economy that is cyclical and evolutionary and creates higher complexity and meaning for everyone. This study is not a strict academic study, it rather speaks directly to companies, entrepreneurs, consultants and all of those who are economically active and curious about change.
I will start to blog loosely about different aspects of the study here (in English), especially on new notions of growth, strategic choices and imaginaries, new forms of innovation beyond growth, as well as new forms of value creation and value added.