On April 15, 2024, in Paris, in a packed room of the climate academy, a hundred entrepreneurs, elected officials and citizens listen in silence to a Belgian economist explaining why “GDP will never come back to its levels before”.
Far from the room, in large financial centers, stock market indicators have been vacillating for months. Energy crises, geopolitical tensions, scarcity of resources, climate pressure: the story of linear and infinite progress seems to be cracking.
“What is fascinating,” says Claire Guérin, founder of the workshop of Upcycling Re-Créer, “It is that this constraint, far from preventing me from innovating, pushes me to imagine solutions that I would never have thought. I can not buy more raw materials? Very well, I will transform the waste of others into treasures.”
His smile does not mask lucidity: to undertake today is to accept that growth as we have known – figures that rise, volumes that explode, markets that open endlessly – belongs to the past.
But it may also be accepting that voluntary decrease becomes a fertile ground for the most creative spirits.
Decreases: the end of a myth, or the beginning of another?
For a long time, decrease was a taboo word. He evoked for many a step back, a loss of comfort, even an economic collapse.
However, more and more voices recall that perpetual growth is a physical impossibility in a finished world.
The American researcher Jason Hickel, author of Less is More, sums up the situation: “We must conceive of savings which thrive without depending on the constant increase in material production. This does not mean living less well, but living better with less.”
This paradigm change does not mean the end of entrepreneurial activity. On the contrary: it opens an unprecedented space to invent models which no longer have the primary purpose of maximizing profits, but the creation of sustainable, resilient, and regenerative value.
From constraint to opportunity: three trajectories
By questioning a dozen leaders who claim to be “post-growth”, three trajectories come back regularly.
1/ Circular transformation
It is the most visible axis. We no longer produce in tense flows from new resources, but from what already exists.
In Lille, Loop Machines manufactures industrial 3D printers which only use locally recycled plastic, collected within a radius of 50 km. “The geographic constraint obliges us to be inventive on the materials,” explains its founder, Malik Renard. “It also gives us a very strong identity: our customers know exactly where our raw materials come from.”
2/ The functionality economy
Instead of selling a product, we sell use. This is the case of Cycleo, a Lyonnaise start-up which does not sell electric bikes, but a subscription including bicycle, maintenance, repair and insurance.
The company does not benefit from pushing for overconsumption, but to prolong the lifespan of each bike.
“Our model is more stable in times of crisis, because it is based on a bond of trust with our customers and not on ever increasing sales volumes”, notes its co -founder, Sophie Martinez.
3/ Intensive localism
Produce less far, but better. In Brest, the food cooperative The roots of tomorrow has set itself the objective of offering only cultivated or manufactured products within a radius of 80 km.
“By removing the long logistics channels, we gain in resilience and we reduce our carbon footprint”, explains its president, Yann Le Gall.
Again, the constraint is an engine: the product map changes according to the seasons, which feeds the culinary creativity of their restaurateur customers.
Innovate without growth: an elite sport
Some economists warn: “decrease will not make inequalities disappear, and undertake in this context remains difficult.”
Traditional funding, calibrated for high growth business plans, are rarely adapted to models that voluntarily cap their expansion.
This is the dilemma that Élodie Farhi, founder of repairing me, met, a network of household objects repair workshops: “The banks asked me for a plan to multiply by ten turnover in five years. But I just wanted to multiply by ten my social impact, not my sales of new objects.”
She turned to citizen crowdfunding, with a return not in dividends, but in discounts and free access to the workshops.
This type of mechanism, still marginal, could become central if the post-growth logic is gaining ground.
Cultural brakes: the weight of the narrative of abundance
If the change of model is possible, it comes up against a major cultural obstacle: the deeply rooted belief that “more” always means “better”.
“For decades, we have associated the success of a company with its encrypted growth”underlines the historian of the economy Anaïs Bréant. “Changing this reflex requires enormous narrative work. Post-growth entrepreneurs must reinvent the very language of success.”
This is why some choose to present themselves not as “decreasing companies”, but as “regenerative companies”, “with a positive net impact” or “freed from compulsory growth”.
The words count: they shape the collective imagination.
The visionaries of the future: entrepreneurs-artisans
You might think that this model attracts only small craft structures. But this is no longer the case.
In Germany, the Vaude clothing manufacturer has integrated into its strategy the objective of reducing its overall production, while improving the quality and repairability of each room. Result: a stable turnover for three years, but a raw margin increasing thanks to customer loyalty and the reduction in costs linked to unsold.
These entrepreneurs are more like craftsmen than in industry captains: they work on sustainability, accuracy, excellence in a limited field, rather than on territorial expansion at all costs.
They know that their business is a living organization, not an endless machine.
Decrease and high technology: a fertile paradox
Decreases do not rhyme with rejection of technical progress.
Free software, local 3D printing, precision agriculture, decentralized artificial intelligence … So many technologies that optimize the use of resources and produce better with less.
In Barcelona, the Fab City Hub is developing urban models where 50 % of the goods consumed are produced locally thanks to micro-usins and collaborative networks.
“Here, technology is a sobriety tool, not an overconsumption engine”insists Marta Llorens, one of the coordinators.
A playground, not a field of ruins
Faced with crises, some see decrease as an inevitable loss. Others see it as an unprecedented space of freedom:
- Freedom to get rid of the absurd objectives dictated by investors only obsessed with growth.
- Freedom to build companies rooted in a territory, resilients with world shocks.
- Freedom to innovate not to “sell more”, but to “live better”.
“When you get out of the obsession with growing, you find the pleasure of creating,” sums up Claire Guérin, the entrepreneur in upcycling. “We play in another championship: that of elegance, relevance and sustainability.”
Towards a maturity economy
Economic history could be about to turn a page.
After childhood (the craft era) and adolescence (the industrial era of explosive growth), we may be entering adulthood: that of maturity, where we recognize the limits and where we act knowing.
This tilting will not be done overnight. He will ask for new financing structures, a recasting of performance indicators, and above all, a profound change in mentality.
But like any transformation, it begins with a few pioneers.
