Reimagining growth futures: overcoming the false binary between green growth and degrowth

Jacob Hasselbalch and Mathias Larsen

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: When imagining how a green transition can take place, the relationship between economic growth and environmental sustainability is commonly viewed in two ways: As ‘green growth,’ where the two can be mutually supporting, and as ‘degrowth,’ where they cannot. The two are considered mutually exclusive, internally coherent, and competing eco-political paradigms. Here, we conceptually analyze the literature and map standpoints within the two positions along nine dimensions covering national institutions, world order, and scientific cosmology. We find that there are substantial disagreements within as well as agreements between green growth and degrowth. In consequence, we argue that the literature is caught in a false binary. To constructively move the debate forward, we propose giving up the paradigmatic and polarized approach and instead embracing a multidimensional plurality of imagined growth futures.

Keywords: green growth; degrowth; post-growth; imaginaries; paradigms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-02
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Published in Ecological Economics, February, 2026, 240, pp. 108823. ISSN: 0921-8009

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