Knowledge Collaboration & Learning for Sustainable Innovation ERSCP-EMSU conference, Delft, The Netherlands, October 25-29, 2010 1 GROWTH AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Joachim H. Spangenberg 1 1 SERI Sustainable Europe Research Institute Germany e.V. Vorsterstr. 97-99, D-51103 Cologne, Germany, Joachim.Spangenberg@gmx.de, +49-221-2168-95 Abstract When analysing the relation of economic growth and sustainable development, three aspects should be distinguished: 1. The growth discourse; 2. Growth politics and a specific economic ideology; 3. The real impacts of economic growth. Ad 1: The discourse claims that the central factor for social, economic, political and environmental progress is economic growth – it is assumed to create wealth, and provide the necessary means for social and environmental purposes. Thus the focus of politics, it is assumed, should be on enhancing growth. The optimal growth rate is assumed to be the maximum possible rate. Ad 2: Different growth policies can be legitimated by the growth discourse, based on different economic and political ideologies. For instance, Keynesian policies try to stimulate growth by strengthening the demand side of the economy, increasing salaries, redistribution measures and public investment. Neoclassical economics demands the lowering of social and environmental standards, and leaving the regulatory function to the market. Ad 3: The EU council has called for “sustained and sustainable growth” – leaving the latter undefined. The “inequation of sustainability” has been developed to assess the sustainability of the growth according to selected minimum conditions. Sustainable development policies need to get rid of the growth fetish, to define social, economic and environmental criteria for sustainable economic development in their own units of measurement. Following these lines of thought (i.e. with growth explicitly no policy objective, but a more or less relevant side effect) scenarios indicate the possibility to reduce environmental, achieve full employment, eradicate poverty and contribute to gender equality. In these calculations economic growth the dependent variable (rebound effects included).