Some argue we can’t fix the climate within the current capitalist economic system. The “degrowth” camp argues that focusing on gross domestic product (GDP) as a measure of success means we need to keep making more and more product, usually with more and more people, and we don’t currently have the technology to do so without increasing greenhouse gases.

Others argue that degrowth will upset the systems we now have in place to provide sufficient essential public goods.

If you have your design hat on, the binary argument of degrowth-or-not probably makes you yearn for other options. Agrowth is just such an option. In a nutshell, agrowth argues we should be agnostic about GDP and instead focus more directly on the outcomes we want as humans, such as “human well-being, including employment, equity, and a stable climate.”

Achieving agrowth would require a variety of actions, from refocusing politicians and journalists to shifting the metrics of the IMF and OECD. Think of it as the social and political aspects of addressing climate change.

But the takeaway here is that you will hear arguments pro/con when it comes to degrowth, and you now have another perspective to offer.