Rethinking Transformative Innovation Policy in the Context of Post-Growth

Since the publication of Limits to Growth (Meadows et al., 1972) and Brundtland reports (1987) debates over socio-economic, and socio-technical transformation towards sustainability have become increasingly prominent. Societies are increasingly facing the need to quickly transform from unsustainability (overproduction and -consumption) to sustainability (life withing planetary boundaries). However, approaches on what to transform and how alter greatly. A central question in sustainability is the ability to achieve fast enough absolute decoupling of economic growth from negative environmental (material) and climate (emissions) impact (Vadén et al., 2021; Hickel and Kallis, 2020; Parrique et al., 2019). Mainstream sustainable development approaches characterized as weak sustainability and exemplified by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) emphasize greening economic development with technological innovations to achieve decoupling. Strong sustainability approaches, stemming from sustainability sciences and ecological economics argue that in the light of recent empirical evidence on absolute decoupling not happening fast enough, there is a need for absolute reduction of material and energy throughput by decreasing production and consumption (hence economic growth) (Meadows et al., 1972; Hickel, 2020; Hickel and Kallis 2020; Parrique, et al., 2019). Following the understanding of weak and strong sustainability, several proposals for sustainable economic approaches have been made, e.g., green growth, a-growth, degrowth. Yet, a large gap in knowledge remains regarding how processes of change happen, how a transformation towards an alternative to the current economic growth model could be achieved, and what is the role of innovation policy in these processes.
Sustainability transitions (or transformations) research is the study of socio-technical and socio-economic transformations (Geels, 2004; 2006; Köhler et al., 2019). While traditionally innovation policy has primarily strived for economic growth, today innovation policy is increasingly seen to play a prominent part in sustainability transformations (Kivimaa, 2022; Schot and Steinmuller, 2018; Laatsit et al., 2022; Haddad et al., 2022). Adopting a multilevel perspective on socio-technical transitions, innovations are seen to play a prominent role in challenging, destabilizing and replacing unsustainable dimensions of the socio-technical system (Geels, 2004; 2006; Kivimaa, 2022). Linked with the discussions on innovation policy paradigms, Laatsit et al., (2022) discuss the variety of approaches placed on innovation policy to address sustainability challenges. They define these as system maintenance, progressive and disruptive system change. In line with thisthis, transformative innovation policy (TIP) argues that innovation policy should not focus only on economic growth, but also on addressing socio-ecological challenges that pave way for socio-technical transformation towards sustainability (Schot and Steinmuller, 2018). While not explicitly linked with de- and a-growth discussions mentioned above, this opening offers a significant break from the past approaches to innovation.
Similarly, research on ecological economics emphasizes that the transformation of socio-technical systems is not sufficient to address the root causes of ecological and social crises; rather, a sustainability transformation requires a fundamental change, from socio-technical systems to the renewal of economic thinking. With regards to this, a spectrum of alternative discourses (incremental, reformist, transformative) to the growth paradigm have been suggested based on their position towards growth, possibilities for decoupling, and the role and type of technologies and innovations in change (Faccer et al., 2014; van den Bergh and Kallis, 2012). In line with transformative discourses, scholars have highlighted the role of non-capitalist and post-growth innovations in successful implementation of sustainability transformations (Feola, 2020; Khmara and Kronenberger, 2020). Rather than emphasizing on green and sustainable growth, scholars are calling for a- or degrowth i.e., descaling of production and consumption and moving beyond GDP to recognize multitude of value creation. implementing alternative, non-profit, needs driven economic activities and innovations (van den Berg and Kallis, 2012; Hickel, 2021; Jackson, 2016). This entails diverse changes in the production and consumption practices as well as innovations and technologies.
While recent openings in the transformative innovation policy literature emphasize the need to move beyond growth driven innovation policy, so far little research has been done on what would post-growth mean for innovation policy in practice. In fact, previous research has mainly explored post-growth innovations and niche “initiatives” in socio-technical change in the context of sustainability transitions research (Khamara and Kronenberg, 2020; Gibbs and O’Neill, 2017) Similarly, while post-growth literature emphasizes a fundamental reordering of the socio-economic (and -technical) system, it is less clear how post-growth would be achieved, and what is the role of innovation policy in this transformation.
Against this backdrop, the paper brings together the discussions on TIP and post-growth innovation and technologies and explores the potential of post-growth innovations to become integrated into broader innovation policies. By doing so, it provides a more structured understanding of the relationship between (transformative) innovation policy and post-growth.