On 19 October 2022, the APPG joined with the Club of Rome in Portcullis House to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Limits to Growth, and to mark the publication of the Club’s new book, Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity.
Limits to Growth has contributed to the emergence of environmental economics, alerting decision makers worldwide to the dangers of unchecked climate change, environmental pollution and unlimited resource consumption. It was the first to model the planet’s interconnected systems and show that if growth trends remained unchanged, we’d reach and then overshoot Earth’s capacity to carry us within the next one hundred years. The report’s innovative modelling was fundamental to understanding the climate emergency, and the realities of living at the very precipice of broken global ecosystems. It offered a chance to rethink growth on a finite planet.
50 years on, the warnings are more relevant than ever. The need to move beyond “growth at all costs” and build a prosperous economy for everyone within the planetary boundaries is recognised as being urgent and necessary for an equitable future.
Our event in October gave space for reflection about the significance of The Limits to Growth for policy making and current opportunities in politics as well as industry, as well as challenges politics and industry face in adopting post-growth thinking.
The event also reflected on Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity, published in September 2022, which examines the impact of the Limits to Growth report and offers five “extraordinary turnarounds” which authors say are necessary for global equity on a healthy planet.These include ending poverty, addressing gross inequality, accelerating gender equity, transforming food systems to make them healthy for people and ecosystems, and transitioning to clean energy.
The event also launched the Earth4All initiative in the UK. Earth4All is working with economic thinkers from across the globe to explore new economic thinking and test the modelling outcomes. The organisation is advocating for governments to adopt policies consistent with the modelling outcomes, that would enable resilient and healthy societies. The message is that economics system change, in line with those first identified in Limits to Growth 50 years ago, are now essential to adopt for the future of human civilisation on a liveable planet.
The event was chaired by Caroline Lucas MP. Panellists included Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Co-President of the Club of Rome, Rhian-Mari Thomas, Chief Executive Officer at the Green Finance Institute, Ken Webster, Director of the International Society for Circular Economy, and Ida Kubiszewski, Associate Professor at the Institute for Global Prosperity at UCL, The event was moderated by Tim Jackson, Director of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity at the University of Surrey.