Principles for a post-growth scenario of ambitious mitigation and high human well-being

Challenging Growth Assumptions

Most climate mitigation scenarios maintain inequalities and assume that favourable social and climate outcomes depend on continued economic growth. By contrast, the new article “Principles for a Post-growth Scenario of Ambitious Mitigation and High Human Well-being” by Policy Lab’s co-founder Aljoša Slameršak and other authors Vivien Fisch-Romito, Jason Hickel, Jarmo Kikstra, Joel Millward-Hopkins, Yannick Oswald, and Julia Steinberger challenges the growth assumptions that still shape most climate scenarios.

Post-Growth Principles

It synthesizes post-growth research into five core principles: well-being, sufficiency, reduced inequalities, repurposing of the economy, and northsouth convergence. These principles reframe the way we can think about climate mitigation, focusing on human needs and ecological limits rather than perpetual economic expansion.

While post-growth approaches face fewer geophysical and technological constraints, they encounter stronger socio-cultural and political barriers. It is exactly the kind of reframing we see as essential for a truly just transition. Because the main barriers to this shift are political and social, not technological.

Read the full study here.

Cite this article
Slameršak, A., Fisch-Romito, V., Hickel, J. et al. Principles for a post-growth scenario of ambitious mitigation and high human well-being. Nat. Clim. Chang. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-026-02580-6