Reflecting on a Summer of Progress in the Wellbeing Economies Movement in Europe

By Maria Zunutti – Implementation Lead

In just a couple of weeks, three big events happened in Europe.

At the end of June, Pontevedra (Spain) hosted the International Degrowth and the European Society for Ecological Economics Conference. Just a week after, Rome (Italy) hosted The Climate Reality Project and the IAFFE (International Association for Feminist Economics) Conference at the beginning of July. 

Three events strongly connected with the wellbeing economy vision. Here are some insights from my experience participating in them. 

Pontevedra:

I always feel at home when I join the degrowth world. We are more than 1.200 people at this conference, and it’s such a great feeling seeing the participation rising every year. I always remember when I started my activism in the degrowth field more than 10 years ago and I felt really alone, whereas now the momentum is slowly but unstoppably growing.
The big majority of the participants are young people, below 30 years old. A great sign that new generations are at the fore front of this vision. Nevertheless, as usual, the big majority of the participants are also European. Decoloniality already became one of the key-stones of Degrowth, but it seems that real representation still struggles to happen. 

The choice of the city of Pontevedra wants to reflect the path that this region is going through to transition to a post-growth economy. The main organizer of the conference, the Post-growth Lab, is actually involved from several years in educational projects with schools about degrowth, and all around the city there are posters explaining the need for a new economic system. It gives the nice impression that this conference wants to be integrated with the place that hosts it, and that is actively working with territories to explore possible solutions and policies. 

Key topic of this year’s conference was science and technology, and how to better incorporate them in a post-growth vision.
As Dan O’Neill, president of the European Society of Ecological Economists, stated at the open ceremony of the conference, the use of AI poses an interesting challenge for the post-growth movement: as this tool is based on previous collective knowledge, and therefore on the growth narrative, it is not programmed to forecast different scenarios that lay outside this vision. Innovation then means to bring different perspectives and use creativity, as the existing technological tools will just propose outdated patterns. 

(for all official pictures click here).

The Climate Reality Project:

One thousand participants at the “Nuvola” space, the new fancy fair building in the EUR neighborhood, the only skyscrapers area in Rome. “Business casual” dress code, very enthusiastic people from different parts of the globe, even though the focus of this year was Europe and more specifically Italy.

All the sessions and panels were very frontal: Al Gore was definitely the protagonist, with a two-hours presentation about climate change and how to solve it. Unfortunately, the only solution proposed was renewables. No mention of the social consequences of our consumeristic and overproductive system, no mention of decoloniality and feminism (and indeed the language used reflects that), no call for a just transition and/or the need to change our economic system.
The green growth vision is quite predominant, and I am quite surprised by the enthusiasm that this proposal still raises in the audience. Everything feels too simplistic and outdated, and the fact that some people are still mind-blown by his speech makes me realize how much way we still have to go through to actually point out the real causes and consequences of climate justice. 

One positive point is the explicit call out against fossil fuel industries, and in particular the Italian one, ENI, which headquarter is just on the other side of the street.
We are invited at the end of the traineeship to march together with a big banner outside the building, and have a picture together. It’s not my first time protesting outside ENI’s headquarter, and I’m happy that this time we’re not just few people. Still I’m wondering why Al Gore is not there with us. That would be have been a very impacting news, and would have closed the gap among activists and preaching gurus.  

IAFFE (The International Association for Feminist Economics)

It’s the first time in my life that I’m surrounded (almost) only by women. Especially in a university. I feel empowered, represented. It reminds me of all the times that I didn’t even imagine about being someone in my life, as I never saw a female figure to feel inspired to. 

The second thing that really impacts me is the worldwide representation. Even though we’re in Europe, the room is full of people from South America, Africa, and even Asia, the continent that I almost never see in any conference, even though is the most populous.  

The topic of this year is the role of the digital economy, a recurrent theme in these last conferences. It seems that most scholars dealing with climate justice and human rights are worried about the consequences of the new technologies. 

The programme is very very dense (30 pages of parallel sessions) for three days. The topics range from the effects of climate change on women, to  the issue of care and its unproportioned burden distribution, from the link among digitalization, job instability and the far-right and the anti-establishment rise, to the bias of data and how AI reproduces existing power dynamics. 

The call for a new economic system is not at the centre of the discussions, but it pops up during some panels and I perceive that this concept is almost taken for granted.

Conclusions

All these events seem to prove that the urgency to act to face the climate crisis is well recognized by now worldwide. However, I notice a big gap among the priorities and strategies proposed by bottom-up movements and organizations created by leaders with louder voices.

Feminism, decoloniality, and the inclusion of new important issues as technology are discussed and integrated only in the academia and the activism world (as the Degrowth and IAFFE Conference proved). Unfortunately, the mainstream vision and narrative brought forward by top-level fellowships is still based on a green growth and imperialist perspective. 

The importance of considering the need for a social and economic systemic change to actually solve the climate crisis still struggles to be recognized outside activism and academia. Not to mention the media, which are present only in events with popular leaders (only the Climate Reality Fellowship was mentioned on the Italian TV news, thanks to Al Gore presence). 

That’s why is so important to make sure to participate in all these occasions, to strengthen and deeper our network when surrounded by like-minded campaigners on the one hand, and to nudge and ask for more radical solutions when involved with more moderate advocates on the other hand.