In a global context marked by ecological and socio-economic crisis, degrowth emerges as a radical and urgent proposal to rethink our ways of living, economic structures, and the organization of cities, offering concrete paths for a transition toward fairer, more sustainable societies centered on collective well-being.
In this interview, we spoke with Susana Ribeira and Guilherme Serôdio, from the Network for Degrowth (Portugal), about what degrowth really means, how the movement is organized in Portugal, and the alternatives it proposes to address today’s major challenges.
This interview was originally conducted in Portuguese and later translated into English.
In short, how would you define degrowth for someone who has never heard the term before?
Guilherme: Some call it a societal project, a vision, an attitude. For me, degrowth is a lens through which to read reality. It is not optional: since we cannot continue to grow indefinitely in terms of material and energy consumption on a finite planet, we must find other ways.
Since no such alternatives currently exist—because all our social infrastructure depends on economic growth—degrowth functions like a map. Even if the path is not yet laid out, it offers a way to read reality and make decisions. It helped me personally. I left Brussels, moved to the countryside before the pandemic, bought a house with a fixed-rate mortgage because I already foresaw collapse. The war in Ukraine, inflation—none of this caught me by surprise.
I position myself according to this lens: the companies I work with, the themes I choose, the place where I live. More than an end goal, it is a guide.
Susana: Theoretically, degrowth is defined as a critique of economic growth or as an alternative model to capitalism—like doughnut economics or participatory democracy. But I prefer to talk about degrowth as a way of being in the world and of making choices.
As Guilherme says, we live on a finite planet. Infinite economic growth therefore makes no sense. Limits exist everywhere. Degrowth is about self-limitation in order to achieve what many call global socio-ecological justice—for all of us.
When and how did the degrowth movement emerge?
Susana: There is a before and an after the report The Limits to Growth, produced by MIT and commissioned by the Club of Rome—a group of scientists led by Donatella and Dennis Meadows, with several researchers involved. They analyzed five pillars: population growth, industrial production, food production, natural resources, and pollution. It was all based on objective data and scientific evidence. The main conclusion was that, given consumption and growth trends at the time, planetary limits would be reached within 100 years. This was in 1972.
The study was reviewed in 2004 and its conclusions remained the same. Nothing changed because we also did not change our behavior much. In the 1970s, authors such as Serge Latouche and Ivan Illich began to study degrowth. But for me, what truly changes things is when it becomes scientific.
Guilherme: The Limits to Growth generated a lot of debate until the Reagan era, which brought the idea that there was, after all, an unlimited resource: human ingenuity. With the rise of neoliberalism, attention to degrowth faded away. At the Rio conferences and COPs, it stopped being discussed.
In my personal life, degrowth entered through the Francophone world, with Pablo Servigne’s book How Everything Can Collapse. He has two other books—The New Law of the Jungle and Another End of the World Is Possible—in which he argues that, in a scenario of environmental collapse, instead of chaos, people would help one another. He is a collapsologist: he looks at reality and sees no way out. For me, degrowth did not arrive as a theory, but as a very well-developed analytical framework in France. Many thinkers work on this idea, even if they do not use the same term.
Susana: The advantage of the term “degrowth” is that it is very hard to co-opt or dilute. There is no possible greenwashing of the term.
What is the Degrowth Network, and what initiatives does it promote?
Susana: The Degrowth Network is an open, horizontal, and participatory collective. In Portugal it has existed since 2018 and began with nuclei in Lisbon and Porto. Today we have groups in Montemor, Mértola, Lisbon, Santarém, and Castelo Branco. We organize ourselves in online and local circles. Each important theme gives rise to a circle—for example, housing or public health. We work on these areas and then present them to colleagues or to the public.
Guilherme: In these circles, we identify difficult topics and organizations that are already working on them. We visit these organizations to get to know them and their places of action, and we organize talks and debates. Every year we hold a national gathering of two or three days in a region, to reflect more deeply, get to know each other, and ask difficult questions. It is very organic and depends a lot on who is organizing.
How do you respond to the criticism that degrowth wants to return to the Middle Ages or is synonymous with recession and social misery?
Guilherme: First, degrowth is not the same as recession. Recession is a crisis of growth. Degrowth is a controlled restructuring to free ourselves from dependence on economic growth. To draw a parallel, there is a difference between poverty and sobriety. Poverty hurts—you don’t want it. Sobriety is chosen, organized, and allows you to live better.
Degrowth also argues that we must collectively discuss what progress really means and move in another, more collective direction. Reducing material and energy consumption opens up entirely new worlds. For example, regenerative agriculture consumes fewer resources but can generate more income. We do not want poverty—no one does. That criticism comes from those who do not want to reflect on what is actually being proposed.
Susana: That criticism really confuses me. I do not accept that degrowth means going back to the Middle Ages or social misery. The truth is that we can produce relational goods such as autonomy, care, well-being, art, and culture—all of which distance us from social misery. Economist Timothée Parrique recently published the book Slow Down or Die, in which he argues that economic growth is not necessary. We can evolve by eradicating poverty, reducing inequalities, funding public services, and mitigating the climate crisis. It is not about stopping progress—it is about progressing in a different way, not based on profit and accumulation.
What other ways are there to measure a country’s progress besides GDP, and why do they make more sense in a world facing social and ecological crises?
Guilherme: There are many ways, and many governments already use them. The New Zealand government has more than twenty metrics to measure social progress rather than growth: the number of buses and ease of mobility, housing prices and food basket costs relative to income, happiness levels, health indicators, and so on. Degrowth begins to erode the obsession with GDP. GDP growth itself is not the problem—its fetishization is. If we rely solely on it, we will destroy everything. Polluting a river can increase GDP…
With increasing deglobalization dynamics, it is essential that our ecosystems are resilient—that rivers and waters are clean—so that we can rely on our local environments to cope with these dynamics and climate shocks.
Susana: New Zealand did not abandon GDP, of course, but complemented it with a range of other measures. This much more holistic economic vision is ultimately fairer for governing any society. The New Zealand government is far fairer to its citizens.
How do you imagine a degrowth city?
Susana: For me, a degrowth city is one capable of voluntarily transitioning from an industrial, extractivist, capitalist society to one that is environmentally sustainable and socially just. Above all, it is a city where there is equality, conviviality, solidarity, and something we work on a lot in the Network: citizen participation.
Guilherme: A degrowth city has to be much smaller. For me, there are no degrowth metropolises. A metropolis must be constantly fed, and at great speed. Reducing the size of metropolises would lead to rural regeneration. We cannot solve urban problems while trying to keep everything the same.
Empowerment through deliberative democratic models is also essential. We carried out experiments in Brussels and Montemor with this kind of political priority-setting, and it is spectacular—especially when participation is truly empowered. Finally, we need to move away from private cars. Lisbon is a city full of sunshine; there is no need for the number of cars it has today.
How can degrowth address the most pressing problems of cities like Lisbon, particularly housing, health, or mobility?
Guilherme: To reduce the flow of people into city centers, we need to re-territorialize economies and rebuild bridges between cities and the countryside.
This can be achieved, for example, through cooperatives, care models, and local currencies at the neighborhood or municipal level. In short, we need to humanize structures to reduce demographic pressure on cities and invest in other population centers.
It is important to have local rural economies, and for that I deeply believe that regenerated agriculture can be a major driver for attracting people away from cities.
I am very cautious about trying to solve urban problems while keeping cities as they are today. That is only possible at the cost of massive environmental destruction. That is the very definition of unsustainable.
Susana: Whether in Lisbon or New Delhi, one of degrowth’s core principles is putting people before economic interests, which lie at the root of housing and health access problems in major cities.
On the other hand, reducing pollution, increasing green spaces, and promoting less sedentary lifestyles all contribute preventively to health. Social interaction improves mental health as well. This should also be fostered in a degrowth city.
As for transport, in Lisbon, for example, it should be perfectly possible to get around only on foot and by metro—that is what I do. There is no need to use a car. With an integrated network, those who live farther away would no longer need a car to reach work. That would greatly benefit Lisbon.
In your opinion, which extractivist projects currently underway in Portugal should concern the population, and why?
Guilherme: Portugal is covered with extractivist projects, whether forestry monocultures of eucalyptus and pine, or agricultural monocultures—much of our industrial agriculture. In addition, we have mining: twenty-five percent (25%) of the country is marked for mineral prospecting, affecting internationally protected areas such as Barroso and others. We have resorts built in natural parks and dunes. We have seas of solar panels, thousands of hectares of ecosystem artificialization. Portugal is truly battered by extractivist projects.
That is why we are launching a support network for communities organizing against extractivism. It is called Brava: a rural resistance network. We will provide funding, support, access to lawyers, and guides for navigating bureaucratic, administrative, judicial, direct-action, and political organization processes.
The central government shows no concern about this issue. On the contrary, any extractivist act is either considered good for GDP or part of what they call an “ecological” strategy, such as the energy transition. But the biggest problem of extractivism in Portugal is the lack of awareness among Portuguese people about what it is and what impacts it has.
Susana: While not an extractivist project, I would add the airport and the declassification of areas of the National Ecological Reserve (REN) and National Agricultural Reserve (RAN), which were created for a reason. We are destroying these areas, and it will be difficult to regenerate or recover ecosystems. We should be concerned above all because these projects undermine environmental sustainability, destroy ecosystems, harm our health, and do not bring us well-being.
Would it not be more ethical to allow—or even encourage—the extraction of critical minerals in Europe if that helped reduce destructive and exploitative mining in the Global South?
Guilherme: It would be, if it were inevitable to continue growing economically at this pace. If we want to keep growing this fast, we will have to dig up everything—abroad and at home. To avoid doing it abroad, we destroy our own territory. But that is a trap, because it prevents us from asking a fundamental question: what about less? Before any mine or solar park, why don’t we ask how much electricity we actually need? How many airports? How much tourism? Is it always more?
The limits are already visible, from Barcelona to Sintra. Without a ceiling, there is no possible ecological solution: we build a solar park, then need more energy, and therefore more mines. So the question is not here or there—it is until when? We must define a limit in order to discover and explore new worlds.
Susana: Would it be more ethical to allow this extraction here? I have to say yes. But the key lies in rationalizing levels of production and consumption, especially in Global North countries, which enjoy greater prosperity and have a larger ecological footprint.
I believe there would be greater global balance with a reduction of current inequalities. As Morena Hanbury Lemos, a PhD researcher in Barcelona, argues, the current international trade system is highly unequal: on the one hand it fuels excessive consumption in the North, and on the other it prevents Global South countries from using their own resources.
What advice would you give to a young person frightened by the climate and ecosystem crisis on how to integrate some degrowth principles into their personal and professional choices?
Guilherme: This is a bit dark, okay? We need to reduce the world’s energy and material consumption by sixty percent (60%) over the next ten to fifteen years. All together: China, the United States, Brazil, Europe… In other words, it’s not going to happen. The anxiety people feel is real—ecological, structural, financial, logistical, economic, social. Very difficult times are coming. That future we projected ourselves into, those pharaonic lives on social media, have no material basis. The first thing I would say is to truly internalize this. Dealing with that grief is not easy.
Then, organize in groups. In Brussels, we met every Wednesday at each other’s homes. Talking about this helps a lot. Make decisions accordingly. If leaving a metropolis is difficult due to lack of safety nets, look for alternative networks. That opens new inner and outer paths. Degrowth is not poverty or a new dark age. It is a new reading of reality that can be deeply enriching. Some sectors need to grow—regenerative agriculture is one of them.
Susana: I think no one can make choices without information. Knowledge is power. It is important to understand that economic growth does not always bring social benefits. We talk about eradicating poverty, but never about eradicating extreme wealth.
But it is not enough to criticize economic growth alone. We need to adopt a holistic view: environmental destruction and social inequality are connected. With this holistic perspective, we can make informed choices and reduce eco-anxiety. And perhaps the best thing is to stop studying and start doing something.
Guilherme: Yes, we need to fight. It is not just about awareness or individual choices. There is little reflection on power dynamics within the degrowth movement. But if you do not exercise power, someone else will exercise it over you. How do we make degrowth policies happen if power is in the hands of those who want growth?
At the same time, the struggle does not happen only institutionally. We need to get involved in associations and movements, especially those defending ecosystems.
Susana: That makes sense. But as someone living in Lisbon and belonging to a political party, it also makes sense to fight from within the system. I can try to change things, even if only a little.
Guilherme: I tend to disagree. Politically, degrowth does not sell. Parties do not adopt it. Either we enter with something truly degrowth-oriented and coherent, or we are just adding tweaks to a growth-based model. I have never seen those dynamics work. But everyone has their own struggle—as long as we fight.
Biographies
Susana Ribeira
With a degree in International Relations, Susana Ribeira has been an activist for ecological and social justice in the Degrowth Network since 2020. She actively participates in the communication and ecofeminism circles and is part of the Lisbon nucleus of the network. With political experience in PAN at both local and national levels, she seeks to articulate this knowledge with degrowth practice. She lives in Lisbon, is married, has two children, and dedicates her free time to activism, also collaborating in a family business.
Guilherme Serôdio
Trained in Law and International Relations, Guilherme Serôdio worked with institutions such as the United Nations, World Banks, and think tanks between New York, Brazil, and Brussels. It was in Brussels that he deepened his activism, helping to create movements, associations, and parties. Faced with the conflict between pro-growth institutions and ecological urgency, he decided to return to Portugal on foot and settle in Montemor-o-Novo. There, he founded a large-scale regenerative agriculture company that combines ecology and economic viability in the rural world.