Economy 2.0

""The future is different. We have to get comfortable with different kinds of growth.""

""Venture capitalists are built to target 10x returns — that is, 10 times what they originally invested in a company — while private equity firms often seek 3x to 6x paybacks on their investments. Companies have high hurdle rates for using their balance sheet capital for corporate investment. Investors who get returns like that often make incredibly efficient use of their capital but aren’t always making the same efficient use of their resources.

""In the last year and a half of the pandemic, as the world stopped, global greenhouse gas emissions predictably fell by 7 percent. And the debate resurfaced. Is it really possible to be sustainable without reducing growth?

""'All growth isn’t created equally,' said Jeffrey Hollender, CEO of the American Sustainable Business Council. 'It’s just the incentives that we have do not necessarily align with the imperative to be more sustainable.'

""'Sustainable growth' might look quite different. For decades, sustainability professionals and economists have debated whether that’s possible and what that might look like. Some say it is an idyllic goal and others worry it’s an oxymoron or a conundrum.

""The reality is, it’s just not what we are used to. But there are more and more examples of how it might be possible.""

Article: Why Needless Growth Isn’t Needed