UNMAKING team members organize Second Utrecht Degrowth Symposium

Laura van Oers, Giuseppe Feola and former UNMAKING researcher Olga Koretskaya are among the organizers of the Second Utrecht Degrowth Symposium, which will be held online on 15 May 2020.

During the event participants will discuss what a circular society can look like and how it can be achieved from the perspectives of practitioners and academics alike. The symposium will stimulate timely and much needed debate on a holistic societal transformation.

Experts warn of the high risk of climate change, resource scarcity and mass extinction of species if we continue on the current path of increasing resource extraction and dependence on fossil fuels as the main source of energy. Wholescale transformations are thus needed to keep the Earth within the safe limits of 1.5 degrees, and preserve resources and ecosystems for the future, while providing for the needs of a rising human population. The concept of the circular economy so far has been largely promoted as a solution that would enable the decoupling of economic growth from environmental degradation. Many scholars, on the other hand, argue that a sustainability transformation cannot be achieved in conditions of continuous economic growth.

In this symposium participants will discuss how a circular economy and society can rise up to the above challenges by tackling the following questions:

·  What does a de-growing circular society mean?

·  Why do we need to transition from a circular economy to a circular society?

·  How can a circularity transition address social and environmental justice while reducing humanity’s global environmental footprint?

·  What are policy solutions for a circular economy and society that stays within the planetary boundaries?

The event will build on the first Utrecht Degrowth Symposium which was held in June 2019 and introduced the notion of degrowth to the public in the Netherlands. The second Utrecht Degrowth Symposium aims to further connect stakeholders from academic and non-academic institutions to discuss holistic societal transformations needed to address the socio-ecological crisis of the 21st century.

The registration form is available here.