Our favorite resources from our online course: How to make sustainability a reality 

Here is a highlight of our 16 favorite further readings from our online course: How to make sustainability a reality - Master the basics of how to avoid greenwashing, go beyond compliance, and lead your industry.

There is 1 resource from each lesson with a small summary so you know what it’s about. 

Lesson 1: Assuming you can decouple carbon emissions from economic growth sufficiently to live up to the Paris Agreement (no evidence of that happening)

Resource: Is Green Growth Really Happening?

Notes: Relative vs. absolute decoupling study: Western countries have achieved relative but not absolute decoupling of greenhouse gases and economic growth in the 2010s. It's not fast enough, not sufficient.

Link: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(23)00174-2/fulltext

Lesson 2: Assuming some new technology will magically appear and solve point 1 (techno-optimism ignores that hope is not a strategy)

Resource: The Unsustainable Green Transition │ Simon Michaux

Notes: A podcast about how there are not enough economically accessible metals to enable a green transition while keeping the economic growth rates.

Link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2DL6ywbOzOJB6k2qYuccNz?si=35ed4753e3384e64&nd=1&dlsi=4c516d221ac148a4 

Lesson 3: Assuming climate change is the only problem (when there are 8 other planetary boundaries)

Resource: Earth beyond six of nine Planetary Boundaries

Notes: The study had all planetary boundaries quantified, finding that six out of nine are transgressed.

Link: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458

Lesson 4: Assuming stable prices on energy and materials (when energy expenditures are increasing)

Resource: Update to the limits to growth 

Notes: This 2020 study found that we are on the path of one of the scenarios that the legendary 1972 report "Limits To Growth" identified. Unfortunately, it's not one of the good scenarios. This is a part of the dynamic of rising energy and material expenditures.

Link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jiec.13084

Lesson 05. Assuming that increases in energy efficiencies lead to absolute energy and material reductions in a growth-based system (the money you save, you use to grow the output, to make more money, which cancels out the initial savings - also known as The Rebound Effect)

Resource: The Myth of Efficiency │Carey King

Link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7km6iRvM0fCyeIIrJRG8Bd?si=d9d0b3da257d4ba0&nd=1&dlsi=7c0fa968dec1401d

Lesson 06. Assuming that you can recycle your way out of the ecological crisis (the 2nd law of thermodynamics explains why that is not possible)

Resource: The Thermodynamics of Degrowth │ Tim Garrett Rachel Donald, Planet: Critical

Link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4xL83gYFAIRG5FdtYATXQE?si=9c2f4ae416bd466f

Lesson 07. Assuming that services have no, or an insignificant, ecological footprint (services cannot entirely replace the material sector)

Resource: Decoupling Debunked

Notes: The meta-study which identified the 7 reasons why green growth fails to deliver absolute decoupling across all planetary boundaries.

Link: https://eeb.org/library/decoupling-debunked/ 

Lesson 08. Assuming you can be a part of the solution to the ecological crises without addressing inequality (they are connected, and inequality is rising)

Resource: Inequality Inc. How corporate power divides our world and the need for a new era of public action

Notes: It highlights the power of the rich and the biggest corporations and how this drives further inequality—it has many great visuals.

Link:https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/inequality-inc-how-corporate-power-divides-our-world-and-the-need-for-a-new-era-621583/

Lesson 09. Assuming minimum wages are enough (they are not living wages)

Resource: Fairphone’s Guide to paying living wages in the supply chain

Notes: Why pay a living wage, how to calculate it, and how to get started.

Link:https://www.fairphone.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Fairphones-Guide-to-paying-living-wages-in-the-supply-chain.pdf

Lesson 10. Assuming you have to be the hero (justice is the answer, not charity)

Resource: Post Growth In The Global South? Some reflections From India & Bhutan

Notes: The study presents 7 ways of thinking about Post Growth in the Global South, which differ from how mainstream post growthers (if such a thing exists) in the Global North think about post growth. In addition, it offers concrete insights from India and Bhutan.

Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921800916315567

Lesson 11. Assuming net zero - "do no harm" - is enough (a world in overshoot calls for regeneration)

Resource: Science-based targets misses the mark

Notes: The study points to some of the Science-Based Target Initiative's shortcomings (as of 2024).

Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01535-z.pdf

Lesson 12. Assuming you can offset carbon emissions and continue business as usual (If you have a shitty product and offset, you still have a shitty product)

Resource: The carbon offset industry needs to be abolished 

Notes: It gives 10 reasons to stop the carbon offsets industry. It provides a good overview.

Link: https://www.somo.nl/the-carbon-offset-industry-needs-to-be-abolished/

Lesson 13. Assuming if you "don't do it this way, someone else will do it and do it worse" (it's a louse excuse; the leakage effect is rarely 100%)

Resource: Carbon leakage in a small economy: The importance of international climate policies

Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014098832200576X

Lesson 14. Assuming you can only scale impact by growing your company's size (avoid growth tunnel vision; there are at least 7 other ways of scaling impact)

Resource: Scaling the impact of sustainability initiatives: a typology of amplification processes

Notes: The study identifies 8 strategies for scaling the impact of sustainability initiatives (where growth is only one).

Link: https://urbantransformations.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s42854-020-00007-9

Lesson 15. Assuming bigger is always better (small is beautiful and less fragile)

Resource: Small Is Beautiful: A study of economics as if people mattered

Link: https://practicalaction.org/who-we-are/small-is-beautiful/

Lesson 16. Assuming you can wait for legislators to level the playing field before you act sufficiently (change doesn't come out of nowhere; it comes from bottom-up initiatives)

Resource: 11 Beyond Growth Policies

Notes: 

A collection of 11 policies that align with post growth principles. We present some that exist, others that are being tested on a small scale, and some that have only been researched and discussed—a starting point for you to see what might be worth fighting for in your sector.

Link:https://www.notion.so/postgrowthguide/11-Beyond-Growth-policies-that-can-change-the-business-world-0ba529da07de4f0fa8ea333fec38ef0c?pvs=4