Beyond Innovation: Exnovation as a Catalyst for Post-Growth Transitions

By Sabrina Chakori

Post-growth entrepreneurship: the need for non-extractivist models

There is growing recognition that responding to the socio-ecological crisis requires more than technological fixes. There is a need to shift away from palliative interventions, which remain limited to promoting incremental or unproven technological approaches, and to embrace more radical interventions that address the structural drivers of environmental degradation and social inequality. This has led to an interest in degrowth and post-growth economies as a way to catalyse transformational change. Degrowth (or post-growth) can be defined as aiming at an equitable downscaling of production and consumption that increases human well-being and enhances ecological conditions at the local and global level, in the short and long-term.

There is a growing body of studies exploring how to (re)organise economic activity, create and sustain businesses in a post-growth society. Evidence from many sectors, ranging from tool sharing systems to food systems, shows that post-growth models already exist. In a recently published study, we summarised some features of post-growth enterprises. These types of organisations advance specific governance and organisational principles, including democratic governance and alternative forms of ownership. Post-growth models also adopt production principles fostering values such as resource regeneration, convivial technology and need-based production and consumption. Additionally, a central feature of post-growth models is that they are not-for-profit. They adopt a not-for-profit status, but they still generate revenue and operate as enterprises that exchange goods and services. They are not entirely dependent on external funding, although some of them can seek support through external funding.

While financial extractivism in for-profit models represents the main characteristic of growth-based capitalist enterprises, non-extractivism is a key attribute of post-growth models. In several jurisdictions across the world, corporate law legally obliges for-profit businesses to generate profit, which makes them inherently extractive: to create profit – defined as the surplus that is distributed to private owners – labour and the environment need to be exploited. Planned obsolescence, which reduces products’ lifetime and pushes consumers to replace their objects more frequently, represents a clear example of financial extractivism.

It is also important to distinguish post-growth models from the concept of social entrepreneurship, which has gained attention globally. As Houtbeckers points out, social enterprises do not always correspond to post-growth enterprises. Social enterprises can be for-profit or not-for-profit and often engage with consumption habits, such as introducing sustainable products, without addressing other aspects, such as workers’ economic democracy.

From innovation to exnovation: a way forward to catalysing transitions

Post-growth models exist and provide important services, however, they tend to remain niches. Our recently published Australian-focused study, which explored food systems transitions, showed that post-growth food enterprises across the supply chain exist and advance important technological and social innovation. The post-growth enterprises analysed adopted a not-for-profit legal status and worked towards advancing several socio-ecological goals simultaneously. For example, they incorporated goals and practices aimed at strengthening local food systems by sourcing food from bioregions within 250 – 300km. Moreover, workers’ wellbeing and co-ownership, active democratic processes – such as participatory budgeting approaches, and cultural recognition were central principles advanced across all cases. These enterprises had been operating between two and thirty years, with the food store and café cooperative representing the oldest established organisation among them.

The study highlighted three major results:

Firstly, post-growth models exist and operate across the food supply chain. While this study reported cases in Australia, many other studies explore the relationships between post-growth and food systems in various regions of the world.

Secondly, while all of the post-growth enterprises analysed advance socio-economic and technological innovations, the study found that the actors involved in these enterprises did not recognise and value the innovations introduced and implemented. Innovation includes the introduction of new technologies, business models or systems. For example, one of the organisations introduced an open-source platform – currently used in several countries – to help connect local producers and eaters, while a second case introduced mechanisms to enable communities to co-purchase and operate farmland. Yet, the actors involved are often primarily engaged in the day-to-day management of their enterprises and lack the resources to identify and valorise the innovation advanced. A greater recognition of these forms of innovation could help legitimise post-growth models.

Thirdly, the innovations – and general community efforts – led by post-growth models remain insufficient and constrained by the growth-driven system. For example, small and medium food enterprises, such as food cooperatives, face challenges in accessing affordable spaces to operate from in gentrified cities.

Overall, the findings show that innovative post-growth enterprises exist and seek to establish alternative food systems within existing conditions of possibility. Nevertheless, this is insufficient. It is important to consider system-level influences that constrain these innovative niches. Barriers to (food) transformation might not be due to a lack of alternatives or innovation, but to a lack of exnovation.

Exnovation can be considered innovation’s counterpart, and it represents the deliberate and planned process of phasing out unsustainable technologies, business models, laws or entire socio-economic systems. As David and Gross  expressed, exnovation addresses “what needs to be done away with to fully establish the new”. For example, exnovation in food systems could translate into phasing out environmentally harmful agricultural and livestock practices, fossil fuels subsidies, disposable packaging and much more. Beyond incremental changes, exnovation is required at a systemic level, to move beyond the growth-driven system that continues to aim at increasing the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Referring to food policy, Robert and Mullinix explained that “GDP obscures important dimensions of wellbeing, incentivizes short-term profits over long-term prosperity, and skews our decision making and policy development”. Beyond-GDP systems, which would prioritise socio-ecological wellbeing, would help reframe “success” in food economies and align resources to support organisations working towards socio-ecological wellbeing.

More research is required to explore exnovation approaches, in particular in food systems. Our recent policy analysis of exnovation showed that despite its potential to strengthen policy coherence, exnovation is rarely translated into practical interventions, remains fragmented and unstructured, and lacks just and fair accompanying measures.

It is important to note that the lack of justice and fairness in exnovation can also lead to backlashes, as seen in the case of farmers’ protests across Europe. The proposed termination of fuel subsidies in Germany, regulations aimed at reducing nitrogen emissions from livestock farming in the Netherlands and restrictions on agricultural water use in France led to hostile responses to these exnovation processes and to a partial retraction of some policies from the European Green New Deal.

Without exnovation, however, post-growth-aligned enterprises endure structural pressures, and resources continue to flow and support models that prioritise financial extractivism. Dominant growth-driven food firms continue to shape food choices, material conditions, food policy and governance processes. Transformative processes warrant a focus not just on innovative models, but also on exnovation processes. Exnovation could play a more prominent role in overcoming the inertia of the status quo. Prominent transition frameworks still continue to be skewed towards an innovation bias, such as the emergence of niches. Therefore, it is important to consider, as Graaf and colleagues wrote, that “a comprehensive strategic transition approach would imply that supporting innovations and the more sustainable alternatives goes hand in hand with consciously ending unsustainable system elements”.

Dr Sabrina Chakori is a Chancellor’s Research Fellow at the University of Technology Sydney and Honorary Lecturer at the University of Sydney (Australia). Her current interdisciplinary research examines the governance of sustainability transitions, with a particular focus on exnovation. Her work spans degrowth, ecological economics, industrial policy, food systems’ sustainability and social entrepreneurship. As a researcher, educator, policy advisor and social entrepreneur, she has led numerous initiatives for more than 22 years. For example, she founded the post-growth enterprise Brisbane Tool Library and is the co-founding editor of the Degrowth Journal. Her work has been recognised by multiple awards and featured in both national and international media.

Image: Food Coop Canberra

Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of the EADI Debating Development Blog or the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes