I recently discussed Christopher Marquis’s HBR article “In Defense of Degrowth”, see here. As seems to happen in work from a degrowth perspective, Marquis’ article spent some time implying that we aren’t making any progress on sustainability. It was pretty depressing stuff. The idea seems to be that to motivate radical change we need to focus on the negative. I worry that people will just give up. We certainly need to do more than we are doing, but it might be useful to ask the question: are we making any progress on sustainability?
Marquis tackles three ideas, he calls them myths, and says we need to stop believing them.
Myth 1: We Are In The Midst Of An Energy Transition
He gives some evidence for an energy transition (i.e., major structural change in energy generation) occurring. His evidence includes significantly falling prices of solar power, and the fact that carbon emissions are decreasing in places. To my mind, he has already undermined his argument that we can’t change by showing that we have changed but he doesn’t seem to think so. Instead, he tells us that progress isn’t happening everywhere (which is true) and this isn’t what happened in the past (which seems irrelevant). Rather than give data to support his position, he only gives data that undermines his position.
Marquis later says that leaders need to avoid the trap of focusing on selective positives such as the boom in renewables. (If you want a selective positive, I would note that the UK, the first country to use coal in large-scale power generation, just stopped using coal totally for this). But if there are selective positives as he notes, then my question is: why can’t we have more of these, please?
Evidence For A Mythical Energy Transition
Marquis says that we won’t achieve an energy transition, because oil lobbyists are powerful, even though a credible case can be made that some places are already making progress despite the lobbyists.
He also mentions that renewable energy often requires the mining of raw materials. This is an important point. How should we compare the harm from any additional mining for renewable energy generation materials, minus the harm from reduced oil drilling, against the reduction in greenhouse gases that comes from using renewable energy? This sets up an interesting and important decision, but there isn’t room in a short Harvard Business Review article to address it. Thus, we get arguments about the problems of mining that are not balanced. Is the mining for battery parts really as bad as the climate change it should help to prevent? There isn’t a meaningful tradeoff argument made. We need to get beyond vague ‘mining is bad too’ arguments. There are usually tradeoffs in life, but sometimes the tradeoffs are worth it. Let’s talk specifics to see if tradeoffs should be accepted.
Oil Lobbyists Will Defend Oil But Will Permit Capitalism To Be Destroyed
The whole argument that oil lobbyists will stop the energy transition is an odd one to rely on. Marquis wants a fundamental change in the economic system, degrowth. Yet, he argues that a shift to renewables isn’t achievable. If you accept the premise that the energy transition can’t be completed in the real world because of lobbyists then I’d think you probably should logically conclude the sort of entire system change (i.e., destruction of capitalism) needed for degrowth isn’t going to make it past them either.
Myth 2: Energy Efficiency Will Solve Climate Change
Many of the changes brought on by the digital age, such as sending documents electronically instead of printing them, are widely believed to be energy efficient and thus better for the environment. In fact, this isn’t the case at all;….
Marquis, 2024
Before reading his article I believed that sending documents electronically is better for the environment than printing the documents and sending them in the post. Was I wrong? What evidence does he give for his belief that email is worse than printing?
… the digital world itself has massive effects on the environment, which are increasing with the advent of data hungry AI systems.
Marquis, 2024
To be clear, I know what he means to say but despite the ‘in fact’ he doesn’t really address the point that the belief that emailing is better than printing remains correct. He says that you think email is more efficient but you are wrong because of …. things that aren’t email. It is a weak argument. Yes, there are looming problems with AI, but that doesn’t alter the fact that email remains better than printing and sending. AI doesn’t change the relationship he discusses in any way. We have made progress in the efficient transmission of information. We can and do transmit more information using less energy and materials.
Jevon’s Paradox
The point he was getting at is that we email more than we would have sent by mail. This means lots of (relatively efficient) emails can still be worse than a more modest number of printouts. This makes sense. He is making a point about Jevon’s paradox. This paradox is that when things get more efficient we use much more of them because we find more uses given the greater efficiency. We certainly do email more than we used to print out and send. Still, the existence of a challenge like Jevon’s Paradox doesn’t automatically mean that we haven’t made any progress.
He Gives More Evidence That Progress Can Be Made
To support the idea that we use more energy as we get more efficient he gives evidence:
…of the 20 large food and restaurant companies examined, more than half had made no progress on their emissions-reduction goals or seen their emissions rise.
Marquis, 2024
Logically, given only some, “more than half”, had made negative or no progress, there must be other firms that had made progress. Progress is, therefore, obviously possible. Can’t we learn from those who have made progress? That seems like a good plan to me.
Instead, he says to achieve net zero we need “to challenge our assumptions about economic success”. I know why he is not confident about the effectiveness of many business net-zero targets. Still, even with their many imperfections, I think business net zero aims will likely achieve more than everyone simply sitting around challenging our assumptions.
Myth 3: Innovation Will Save Us
He suggests that we shouldn’t believe that innovation will save us. On the narrow point, I agree that no single solution will save us. It is not sensible to hope for a miracle.
Hype Cycle
He says that technologies so far overpromise and underdeliver. There is a common discussion in innovation about the hype cycle. This suggests that people tend to 1) expect too much when they first encounter a new technology, 2) they initially get disappointed, and 3) only then find out later that it has made a major impact. Does tech take a while to scale? Sure. The trick is to encourage this scaling of positive tech. Saying it won’t work when some of it is currently working, admittedly at too modest of a scale, isn’t super helpful.
EVs, The Devils Work
There are lots of clever innovations that can help with part of the problem. For one of the big ones, EVs, he points to problems that certainly exist, e.g., in mining and disposal. Still, we need to get into the details. How we can compare the relative problems of EVs versus gas cars? It is an HBR piece so it is hard to use too much data but all the data that I can find from reliable sources shows a positive impact from converting fleets to EVs.
I have a Nissan Leaf so let’s use data on that. To argue against the fact we have made progress I’d say must involve explaining how the projections like the one below, which clearly shows the EV quickly paying off its manufacturing carbon debt, are wrong. Or, at a minimum, describing how we should factor in negative considerations that are not shown in the figure. There are environmental costs of both mining for EV materials and drilling for oil to power gas cars. Where is the evidence that mining is so much worse than drilling that it means we should arrive at the conclusion that EVs aren’t helpful despite the better performance of EVs on carbon dioxide emissions? Oil lobbyists might want to say EVs aren’t any better than gas cars. Why would we do oil lobbyists work for them?
Are We Making Any Progress On Sustainability?
Yes, we are.
Are we making enough progress? No.
Is is consistent across all areas? No.
So how do we encourage more progress? Probably not by saying it is impossible. I’m guessing the best way is to be more positive about the genuine progress that we have already made.
For more on degrowth and its thinking read here, here, here, and here.
Read: Christopher Marquis (2024) In Defense of Degrowth, Harvard Business Review, June 11
