More isn’t always growth

This year, Earth Overshoot Day occurred quietly on 24^th of July. A full week earlier than it occurred in 2024. Should we be alarmed? Absolutely, so why was there very little media coverage of the fact? Maybe it’s because Earth Overshoot Day is no longer news. After all, the same thing has been happening year after year.

The date has been moving up the calendar annually. We’ve been overconsuming earth’s resources and hindering its ability to regenerate those resources for decades. People have been shouting about it, trying to raise awareness, but the minute someone mentions using less resources or generating less outputs, the response often turns to: That’s not realistic! We NEED growth!

Degrowth? It’s a term that’s often misunderstood. It’s often scoffed at by business leaders and economists. The entrenched belief that in order to uplift communities, especially in middle- and lower-income countries, there needs to be consistent growth. GDP is the single metric used to measure this.

If you burn down the house as you bake more cake, is that really growth?

GDP growth signals more for everyone, but is that the reality we’re living in? A quick look around the world and it’s not hard to see that GDP has done little to close inequality. Currently, 1% of the global population hold the majority of the wealth, using it to generate billions more. Contrast this with 1,7 billion people not making ends meet because inflation is resulting in spirally costs that wages simple don’t keep up with.

GDP hasn’t uplifted the poor even in growing economies. If anything, it’s made it worse, and a major part of the problem is waste and overproduction. There can’t be profit if costs are hidden or ignored. It can’t be called growth if only 1% are benefitting.

Perhaps instead of fixating on growth, companies should take a closer look at the costs of resources. Globally in almost every industry; food, textiles, consumer goods, electronic devices, even sporting goods; production volumes keep increasing requiring vast volumes of resources.

Yet when those items are dumped because they remain unsold, are not longer trending, or simply reach the end of their very short life span, very little consideration is given to the economic cost of all the resources that went into them.

Take as much as you want isn’t growth, it’s waste.

The concept of degrowth is not to cripple economies, as many believe. It’s to make them use resources more efficiently. Achieve more value, generate less waste. Hasn’t efficiency been the goal of businesses for decades? How have we gotten it so wrong?

Right now, economies are using too many resources, producing too much, and there's no indication of slowing down. The argument against degrowth is that it's not economically viable - if industries aren't growing, they will fail. 

But this argument doesn't account for the volume and cost of waste, and this is the economic cost that is starting to tip the scales:

·         Textile waste accounts for 92 million tonnes. In the USA, it’s estimated that 85% of textiles are landfilled.

·         E-waste was estimated at 62 million tonnes in 2022, with just over 20% collected and properly recycled.

·         Food waste in the USA is estimated at 60 million tonnes annually, accounting for 40% of the country’s food supply. Globally it’s estimated that the cost of food waste adds up $1 trillion.

None of this waste accounts for the water and energy resources used, not to mention the impact of soil, air and water quality, or the degradation of habitats and ecosystems. Even if only considered from an economic perspective, how is wasting $1 trillion acceptable?

Imagine what could be achieved with $1 trillion, if it wasn’t being wasted. Some of the biggest global problems such as hunger, education, regeneration of ecosystems and habitats, might just become a whole lot smaller. If only it were that simple.

Redefining efficiency by focusing on defining waste and rethinking responsibility

A study from 2023, looked at how much of the USA’s GDP was wasted, working on the assumption that if GDP did not support human and environmental welfare, it was not sustainable and therefore couldn’t be considered growth. Alarmingly, 63% was considered wasted on non-essential economic activity.

What’s essential? Profits? How about clean air, clean water, productive soil, or availability of resources? Education, healthcare, access to clean community spaces? To date, too few organizations have given those essentials much thought. For most, it’s been all about profit, with costs poorly defined when it comes to waste.

What’s telling is that until recently there’s been a distancing of companies from the cost of collecting and processing waste from the products they produce – a gap that programmes such as End Producer Responsibility (EPR) aim to close.

We can acknowledge that there is no perfect solution, EPR, Simpler Recycling, the Global Plastic Pact are all just instruments aimed at improving efficiency and reducing waste. New regulations can add incentive and improve compliance, but what we really need is people that care enough.

Not activists or influencers, but people working in industries that see the bigger picture and go: “This is waste, there are better ways of doing things, we CAN do better.” And then they get stuck in and actually do it.

This is what developing green skills is all about, and why behaviour and attitude forms such a critical part of hiring. We’ve seen it as we run candidates through our skills-based assessments and personality assessment. It’s what separates great candidates from okay ones. The great candidates – they’re the ones that make an impact – and that’s what all industries need right now.