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How the Global South Can Lead the Way to a Post-Growth Future
Evidence suggests small to medium-size enterprises in the Global South are prioritizing social and environmental impact over economic growth.
The ‘post growth’ agenda envisions a future where economies do not grow infinitely. Degrowth is one of many routes to get there — by reducing the use of finite natural resources and addressing the social inequity that is inherent to the quest for endless economic growth.
Much of the post growth and degrowth discourse comes from the Global North, often with little regard to existing approaches in the Global South and its context specific challenges. The Global South is in fact home to a range of business model alternatives to economic growth, especially among smaller and medium-sized enterprises — many of which are democratically owned or grassroots organizations. The region faces disproportionate ecological and societal challenges, and is therefore uniquely placed to lead the world in the transition away from growth-based success metrics.
While the transition to renewable energy will play a crucial role in the emergence of a post-growth future in the Global South, investors and development organizations from the Global North continue to impose growth-based key performance indicators (KPIs). This approach disregards the challenges of local contexts, and obfuscates alternative, “unconventional” ways of doing things. In their 2019 article, Performance Beyond Economic Growth: Alternatives from Growth-Averse Enterprises in the Global South, Cle-Anne Gabriel, Samira Nazar, Danfeng Zhu, and Jodyanne Kirkwood analyze examples of renewable energy enterprises (REEs) in the Global South that look beyond economic growth for key indicators of success.
How important is economic growth to enterprises in the Global South?
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Putting Post Growth Theory Into Practice
The Post Growth Entrepreneurship Incubator helps founders break free from traditional business models and implement sustainable non-extractive practices.
Melanie Rieback is the founder of the Post Growth Entrepreneurship
(PGE) Incubator, Nonprofit Ventures, as well as her own successful post
growth business, Radically Open Security (ROS). We sat down with Melanie to find out more about the innovative program helping founders break free from traditional business models and implement sustainable non-extractive practices.
How do you define Post Growth Entrepreneurship?
I would say it’s entrepreneurship and startup incubation that is focused on building non-extractive and not-for-profit businesses. So we’re trying to use entity forms like foundations and Steward Ownership. We promote cross-subsidizing charity with our businesses, and we’re trying to offer an alternative for startup founders who want to bring their activist, artistic, spiritual business ideas to life without selling out in the commercial startup ecosystem. Too much of the startup ecosystem uses the Silicon Valley model of ‘capital, scale, exit.’ Instead we’re promoting: bootstrapping, flat growth, and non-extraction.
What brought you to post growth thinking and approaches?
When I started my cybersecurity business I knew I wanted it to be a social enterprise. I have philosophical differences with market leaders in the space: they work with intelligence agencies, they hack activists, they build surveillance black boxes that get sold to developing countries; so I wanted to find a way to separate out the profit motive from the actual operational vehicle of a business.
I stumbled on a model from the Dutch church, called a Fiscal
Fundraising Institution (FFI), where money is raised via a commercial
spin-off and then donated back into the church with tax benefits. So we decided to create an IT security company, and our so-called “church” is the NLnet Foundation, a charity that supports digital rights and open source initiatives…
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