Search results

Quiet Quitting

In order to be able to do paid work, it is a condition that people also do reproductive work. Raising children, taking care of the house, running errands, taking care of the community (family, neighbours), etc. all this is also necessary work. No paid work without this so-called reproductive work. There is a lot to be said about quiet quitting, about people doing their 9 to 5 (office) job as minimally as possible, because it is so far from their "purpose". Since Corona, people are often allowed to work from home. Contrary to expectations, it appears that people can often do their work in solitude with (considerably) fewer hours at home than before in the office. Quietly dropping out, doing less paid work (Degrowth) may have more impact than contributing to even more production, material and energy consumption in an economy of infinite growth from finite resources. By increasing our reproductive work - well-being - we may be able to shape degrowth. Tilting towards a sustainable planet must be done bottom up, from our own Inner Development Goals! Something that seems terrifying, quiet quitting, may be a starting signal of something very beautiful!

Green-washing or best case practices?

Closed loop or ‘circular’ production systems known as Circular Economy and Cradle to Cradle represent a unique opportunity to radically revise the currently wasteful system of production. One of the challenges of such systems is that circular products need to be both produced locally with minimum environmental footprint and simultaneously satisfy demand of global consumers. This article presents a literature review that describes the application of circular methodologies to education for sustainability, which has been slow to adopt circular systems to the curriculum. This article discusses how Bachelor and Master-level students apply their understanding of these frameworks to corporate case studies. Two assignment-related case studies are summarized, both of which analyze products that claim to be 'circular'. The students' research shows that the first case, which describes the impact of a hybrid material soda bottle, does not meet circularity criteria. The second case study, which describes products and applications of a mushroom-based material, is more sustainable. However, the students' research shows that the manufacturers have omitted transport from the environmental impact assessment and therefore the mushroom materials may not be as sustainable as the manufacturers claim. As these particular examples showed students how green advertising can be misleading, applying “ideal” circularity principles as part of experiential learning could strengthen the curriculum. Additionally, this article recommends that sustainable business curriculum should also focus on de-growth and steady-state economy, with these radical alternatives to production becoming a central focus of education of responsible citizens. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.02.005 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/

Teaching circular economy: Overcoming the challenge of green-washing

This chapter will introduce the circular economy (CE) and Cradle to Cradle (C2C) models of sustainable production. It will reflect on the key blockages to a meaningful sustainable production and how these could be overcome, particularly in the context of business education. The case study of the course for bachelor’s students within International Business Management Studies (IBMS), and at University College in The Netherlands will be discussed. These case studies will illustrate the opportunities as well as potential pitfalls of the closed loop production models. The results of case studies’ analysis show that there was a mismatch between expectations of the sponsor companies and those of students on the one hand and a mismatch between theory and practice on the other hand. Helpful directions for future research and teaching practice are outlined. https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319713113#aboutBook https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/

Degrowth

Despite continuous improvement, lifelong learning, and plan-do-check-act cycles, every new day the planet is a little worse off than the day before! In the first 10 months of this year alone, an area the size of the Netherlands has been deforested and twice that area has been added to desert! Technology development, continuous improvement and quality approaches are (at most) aimed at doing the best possible. That's not the same as doing the right things. Implementing wrong (disastrous) practices as efficiently as possible is actually accelerating the ever-growing problems we face. In this article it is argued through 8 suggestions how to evolve from prosperity to well-being, to economic degrowth in favour of ecological growth and increasing connectedness.

Growing degrowth: mind the trap

Outline of a Degrowth Business Model Framework

For future generations to meet their needs, and to close the global inequality gap, we need to degrow. That is we need to reduce resource and energy consumption to bring the economy back into balance with the living world in a way that reduces inequality and improves human well-being (Hickel, 2020a,b). This transition has consequences for business, because instead of boosting sales companies need to encourage consumers to make do with less, avoiding build in obsolescence, extending product lives to slow disposal and replacement, focusing on satisfying ‘needs’ rather than ‘wants’ and reducing overall resource consumption through conscious changes in sales and marketing techniques, new revenue models and innovative technology solutions (Bocken & Short, 2016). Overall, we can say that companies have to rethink their business models, therefore I specifically aim to answer the following research question: what could a degrowth business model framework look like? Degrowth business models (DGMs) are supposed to serve the dual aim of (1) obeying planetary boundaries whilst simultaneously (2) contributing to reducing inequality and increasing well-being. That is companies need to develop value propositions that, on the one hand contribute to absolutely reducing resource and energy consumption, and on the other are aimed at production of protected needs (Di Giulio & Defila, 2021). Since degrowth is considered an authentic and legitimate interpretation of sustainable development, SDGs 12-16 can serve as proxies for obeying planetary boundaries, whilst the remaining SDGs (minus SDG8.1 -economic growth) can be regarded as proxies for well-being and reducing inequality.