Yesterday evening I attended one of the best panel discussions so far in Austria. An incredibly competent panel presented the book Growth in Transition, at the Hauptbücherei (main library) in Vienna. The panel participants were well prepared, kept it short (I love that!), and some of them even seemed like they were having fun on the podium.

The panel consisted of Friedrich Hinterberger, Sustainable Europe Research Institute, SERI; Elke Pirgmaier, SERI; Elisabeth Freytag, Umweltministerium; Martina Schuster, Lebensmisterium; Michaela Moser, Armutskonferenz; and Philipp Reuchlin, World Business Council for Sustainable Development. The discussion was moderated by Johannes Kaup, Ö1, (does this guy have the perfect moderation voice – or what!?).

I thought some of the most interesting points in the presentation were these:

• The alternatives ways of measuring growth are very much the centre of the transition discussion. But we have to think about whether we need measurement at all. This urge to measure everything stem from an economics discourse, and perhaps we don’t need to measure, we just need to live whatever is most important in life. We are truly obsessed with measuring… and what good does the economics discourse really bring anyway?
• We have to ask ourselves if the world is really a better place if we have 24 biscuits instead of 12, when 1% of the population tends to take almost all biscuits, and let the rest share the bread crumbs – independently of how many biscuits there are. So, do we really need growth? Of course there has to be something – otherwise there’s nothing to share. But is growth the answer to that? Isn’t the sharing policies more interesting to look at?
• We need more regulations from governments, and we need it now and heavily, to make companies become more sustainable – fast. But still, the outcome of this process relies heavily of all parts of society – government, as well as the civil and business sector.
• Getting away from economic growth as we see it today is about changing norms and values – in short – we’re talking about culture changes. (And we know how challenging those can be…).
• We need to ask ourselves how much our current growth paradigm costs us in terms of destroyed eco-systems, unemployment etc. Perhaps it does really cost us more than it actually brings. (Staggering thought!)
• It can actually be more expensive to make it wrong than to make it right. An example of this is that it may prove less expensive to not pollute the water in the first place, than to pollute it and then have to clean it.
• Cities with closed water systems and free from waste were mentioned as a future necessity! Hello Zero Waste!

On the plus side of yesterdays’ panel I’d also like to mention that there were more women than men on stage. Especially for this country I would almost label that as a miracle!

On the minus side: the panel format was very traditional with small speeches rather than discussion, and most statements from the audience were incredibly boring, some even embarrassing. Just a hint! There are many new exciting formats for hosting presentations and discussions, and for avoiding monologues from people in the audience, where people even leave the room!

Enter: The Good Tribe!

xo,

Evelina