>This panel aims to foster debate between and provide a reality-check of some of the major narratives of growth currently experienced and envisaged. In particular, representatives from green growth, post-growth and degrowth will offer their perspectives on new potential narratives, helping to guide our societies towards a more prosperous future.

The narrative of economic growth has given riches to the ambitious, which have promised to eventually trickle down to the less affluent, maintaining peace and a happy life for all. However, despite the optimism placed in technology’s abilities to alleviate the ecological losses that result from this pursuit for more, socio-environmental crises have intensified, with inequality on the rise and climate change and biodiversity loss threatening to disrupt our life as we know it. Can the old story be replaced by a new one, and if so, by which one?

Chair

Pascal Arimont – MEP (EPP), Beyond Growth Conference organiser

Speakers

Michael Jacobs – Professor of Political Economy in the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI) and the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Sheffield

Maja Göpel – Professor, Leuphana University, co-initiator of the “Scientists for Future” network and member of the Club of RomeProfessor, Leuphana University

Ekaterina Chertkovskaya – Researcher, Lund University

Elina Erikson – Associate Professor in Human-Computer Interaction with a specialization in Sustainability, KTHRoyal Institute of Technology (Sweden)

Growth is only a means to an end – everything in nature that is growing has an optimal