From the 13th to the 15th of May the Beyond Growth Conference Austria took place in Vienna, inspired by the 2023 conference in Brussels. Various actors, from the organizations Degrowth Vienna, Global 2000, Umweltdachverband and Doughnut Wien, decided to collaborate on this project and bring Degrowth to the Austrian Parliament and media. Additionally, there was political support from the Green and Socialist party, who hosted the opening ceremony. But, as expected, there are forces who want to prevent Degrowth from becoming a more present part of the political debate in Austria.
The three guiding questions Why? – How? – Who? structured the topics for each day and enabled ‘newcomers’ to the topic to keep up with them. Everyday there were panel discussions with experts, accompanied by enthusiastic contributions from the audience. In a smaller, more personal group setting all participants could jointly discuss solutions in focus rounds concerning trade, labor, money and society. Those rounds made it possible to have more de facto inclusion and participation, which was very much appreciated by the attendees, according to some feedback. The results from those rounds were collected everyday, built upon in the day after and are going to be a crucial part in the final harvesting report. One could tell that from an organizational perspective, “practice what you preach” was taken very seriously: intersectional perspectives among the speakers, sustainable catering, democratic participation and a non-profit orientation were consciously implemented, to name a few.
One of Degrowth Vienna’s members Christian Hüttmann spoke at the
panel discussion about needs. Chris represented the solution of orienting our economy after universal basic needs, by realizing universal basic services through not only governmental, but also civic or associational institutions and mechanisms.
