Blue Degrowth

Irmak Ertör, Maria Hadjimichael, Borja Nogué-Algueró

Related terms: Anthropocene, alternatives, blue humanities, care, commons, conviviality, degrowth, environmental justice, post-extractivism, post-growth, resistance, social metabolism

The term ‘Blue Degrowth’ (BDG) was coined to challenge the rapidly dominant projects and discourses around the blue economy striving for endless ocean-based growth and accumulation, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to bring forward discussions regarding alternative societal imaginaries for the use of, access to, and relations with marine ecosystems (Nogué-Algueró et al. 2025).  BDG builds on the ‘degrowth’ concept that is commonly defined as “an equitable downscaling of [production and consumption as well as] throughput, with a concomitant securing of wellbeing” (Kallis et al. 2018, 297). Degrowth scholars and activists are concerned not only with showing that the GDP is an inadequate indicator of wellbeing (of both individuals and societies), but also with problematizing the hegemonic idea of growth “that obscures more ecologically friendly and egalitarian alternatives” as highlighted by Demaria et al. (2019, 432). ‘Blue Degrowth’ builds on the same critical discussions and practices that call for “decolonising imaginaries and institutions” (ibid., 431) while expanding its scope to the marine realm, which usually falls outside the central concerns of a wide range of social movements and actors striving for a degrowth transformation of the capitalist social metabolism.

In trying to establish the links between the scholarship adopting Blue Degrowth lenses and the blue environmental humanities approaches, we have been inspired by a fable by Oliver Jeffers, titled The Fate of Fausto (Jeffers 2019). The fable follows the story of Fausto, a man who believed he owned everything, and who went on a journey to “set out to survey what was his,” starting from a flower, then a sheep, and then a tree, all of which bowed before him, accepting his domination (ibid., 2):

“Before long, Fausto claimed a field, a forest, and a lake. […] When he reached a mountain, Fausto said in a clear voice, ‘Mountain, you are mine’” (ibid., 17, 21-22).

Though the Mountain tried to fight Fausto, in the end, it appears to have agreed to belong to Fausto. But “a mountain, a lake, a forest, a field, a tree, a sheep, and a flower were not enough for him” (ibid., 38). Fausto thus set sail on a boat to dominate the sea. “Sea, you are mine,” Fausto said in a loud voice (ibid., 42). The sea ‘stood’ strong, certain that no ‘man’ can own her, no ‘man’ understands or ‘loves’ her. As Jeffers makes clear, Fausto drowned in his effort to own the sea:

…the sea was sad for him, but carried on being the sea. The mountain, too, went back to its business. And the lake and the forest, the field and the tree, the sheep and the flower carried on as before. For the fate of Fausto did not matter to them (ibid., 71-79).

Fables and children’s books often speak about realities that adults tend to forget or deny. In this case, it refers to the fact that humans (including Fausto) do not own other animals nor the rest of nature. Babies and children usually relate differently to non-human nature; sometimes with fear and respect, sometimes with love and passion. They breathe it in and out, experiencing different colours and sounds, varying textures, smells, and movements with all their senses. Their subjective experience of the world is not yet fully mediated and constrained by capitalist social relations, unlike most adults in contemporary societies.

Here, we acknowledge the possibility of experiencing and relating to the world otherwise as the foundation for our discussion of Blue Degrowth. Blue Degrowth is first and foremost a call to counteract the capitalist growth imperative to maximise the exploitation of marine resources and spaces, turning the Ocean into the ultimate global economic frontier. Moreover, Blue Degrowth proponents call for a different relationship with the Ocean and its seas, one in which humans do not intend ‘to own it,’ as Fausto does, but rather consider themselves as part of it, engage with it, and really ‘love it.’ In fact, for most of human history, most coastal and island communities have sustainably related to their surrounding seas in a multiplicity of ways other than just following the profit motive.

The ‘Blue Degrowth’ concept emerged for two initial reasons, based on degrowth theory and activism that have become widely known, especially in the last decade, with their own ‘vocabulary for a new era’ (D’alisa et al. 2014), which includes both a strong criticism of mainstream capitalist economic thinking and a discussion of its alternatives for more just and sustainable futures. First, scholars and activists felt the need to confront the recent blue growth frameworks and related policies pushing for the development of the Ocean as a new economic frontier. This led to the discussion of a wide range of blue growth and blue economy policy proposals that focused on further growth and capital accumulation using the marine spaces and commons in different geographies (Ertör and Hadjimichael 2020; Nogué-Algueró, 2020). Second, they aimed to generate and frame alternative economic practices, struggles, and imaginaries concerning human relations with marine ecosystems, beyond the commodification and growth imperatives (Ertör and Hadjimichael 2020, 4; Nogué-Algueró et al. 2025).

As mentioned in the “Blue Humanities” entry of this Environmental Humanities Glossary, the Ocean cannot be understood based on a “cartographic fixity” (Oppermann 2025). Highlighting the mobile and liquid nature of marine ecosystems, Blue Degrowth articulates an immanent critique of the imaginary of the seas as a new economic frontier with a high potential for growth, enclosure, and capital accumulation (Havice and Zalik 2019; Narchi et al. 2024). The material, energy-specific, and spatial uses of marine ecosystems have been increasing significantly over the last decades, along with the pollution these expanding and intensifying uses generate (Duarte et al. 2020; Halpern et al. 2019; Jouffray et al. 2020). Industrial fishing, intensive aquaculture, maritime transportation, coastal development, mass international tourism, seabed exploration, and a myriad of other marine extraction activities have led to an intensified use of the Ocean. Moreover, marine and coastal ecosystems have been used increasingly as sinks for the detritus of the expanding global social metabolism. While marine ecosystems are crucial for carbon and heat sequestration, they have also been considered as three-dimensional spaces for making anthropocentric waste invisible: about a quarter of carbon emissions and most of the excess heat produced by GHE are trapped in the Ocean (Bronselaer and Zanna 2020). On the other hand, much industrial production and many disposal processes, shipbreaking being an infamous case (Dewan and Sibilia 2024), have usually been realised on the coastline to easily get rid of toxic waste flows. In addition, pervasive fertiliser and plastic pollution have been affecting the marine ecosystem widely, among other pressures (Clark and Longo 2018; Geyer et al. 2017). The treatment of the seas as global dump sites of the Anthropocene has resulted in a massive loss of marine biodiversity and habitats, and a profound alteration of the Ocean’s biogeochemical processes that are fundamental to sustaining life as we know it (Carson 1951).

In this context, the usage of the ‘Blue Degrowth’ concept aims to call attention to this devastating socio-ecological process and establish the link between deteriorated marine ecosystems and the failures of the global capitalist system. By introducing ecological economics, political ecology, and political economy approaches to the study of global maritime governance, and by underlining power relations linked to the use of marine commons, the operationalization of ‘Blue Degrowth’ intends to bridge degrowth and (environmental/blue/fisheries/food) justice struggles (Ertör 2023), both in theory and practice, as well as in policy circles at varying scales. Blue Degrowth demonstrates the failures and harmful effects of (marine and terrestrial) extractivism while global enterprises try to expand commodity frontiers spatially to the seabed through deep-sea mining, as well as continue with ocean grabbing and ongoing enclosures in different marine geographies (Barbesgaard 2018; Narchi et al. 2024; Clark et al. 2018). Blue Degrowth thus has the potential to act as an umbrella framework for arguing (as well as getting organised) against a wide range of extractive and devastating marine activities. Such dialogues can be observed in spaces such as the UN Ocean Conference’s off-site Ocean Camp (2025) where marine regeneration and prosperity beyond growth (including both conceptual new approaches like blue moral economy and concrete proposals and action like stopping deep sea mining, excluding harmful industries from the ‘blue’ label) have been discussed by academics, NGOs, and community representatives (Seas at Risk 2025).

While Blue Degrowth does not represent the entire critical marine social science literature, Blue Degrowth advocates try to establish new networks and links with critical approaches such as social oceanography (Narchi et al. 2024), blue justice (Blythe et al. 2023; Jentoft et al. 2022), marine sociology and critical sustainability science (Longo and Clark 2016; Longo et al. 2025), as well as critical ocean geography / critical ocean studies (Peters et al. 2023; Steinberg 2025). Therefore, it distributes a call for socially and ecologically just blue futures both for humans and non-human nature while highlighting that infinite growth at and from the vast but finite Ocean is neither possible nor desirable. This entry hence also aims to expand this call and such a transdisciplinary dialogue to environmental humanities scholars and practitioners. It highlights the emergence of movements counteracting the blue growth hegemony and policy frameworks under the capitalist global regime, just as it underlines the importance of co-producing knowledge and co-developing alternative narratives, politics, and ways of relating to the seas and oceans.

Last, but not least, we would like to remind ourselves that fish do not recognise or accept borders, nor do the plankton creatures and the seagulls. Even though Fausto or any other person might “stamp his foot and show his fist [trying to prove] who is the boss” (Jeffers 2019, 20, 25), they will move in a mobile and liquid space as long as their ecosystem is alive. Taking heed of Rachel Carson’s old omen:

It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose, should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself (The Sea Around Us 1951, xiii).

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