Who we are and how degrowth is flourishing in Poland

Our informal group, Degrowth Poland (pl. Dewzrost Polska – we only adopted this name in 2024), came together during the pandemic – a time when many people sought refuge in nature: parks, forests, the countryside, lakes, or mountains, while everyday professional activities faded into the background. This was perhaps the clearest proof that we can continue to function without economic growth, that greenhouse gas emissions can fall without the world ending, and that life itself can be re-evaluated. It was also a time of reflection on the state of nature. For example, groups of residents outraged by the scale of clear-cut logging carried out by the State Forests began to protest and demand more sustainable forest management (leading, among other things, to the creation of the organization Forests and Citizens). Let us not forget that through ‘anthropause’ – giving nature more breathing space due to the temporary slowdown in the economy – the wildlife around us has shown how quickly it can regenerate.

Pandemic isolation did hinder the Youth Climate Strike and the simultaneously developing local Extinction Rebellion groups in Poland from reaching critical mass. However, many of the people active at that time now co-create Poland’s Last Generation movement – the most diverse of the aforementioned movements, which is fighting for degrowth-oriented demands: financing railways and local buses in Poland by shifting funds allocated for the construction of motorways and expressways, with the aim of eliminating transport exclusion and reducing emissions; and cheap monthly tickets for public transport throughout Poland. Degrowth Poland members have also been/remain involved in various environmental activities, including those mentioned above, as well as more broadly in pro-democracy and pro-equality activities, in support of minorities, workers’ rights, human and non-human species rights as well ast those of excluded and marginalised groups.

Some members of our Degrowth Poland group had already met under the banner of post-growth (in Poland, post-growth was originally used and more popular term; now Polish dewzrost is mostly used for degrowth), working on various initiatives (e.g. PostWzrost: Degrowth / Décroissance in Polish czy Postwzrost.pl). In October 2020, the first Polish conference ‘Between Growth and Catastrophe’ was held, and Czas Kultury published an issue on degrowth. In December of that year, Dewzrost: Slownik Nowej Ery [Degrowth: Dictionary of the New Era] by Giacomo D’Alisa, Federico Demaria, and Giorgos Kallis (eds.) was published in Polish by Lucja Lange (available online in open access). It was then that Michal Czepkiewicz, Weronika Parfianowicz and Robert Skrzypczynski proposed ‘the creation of a structure – under the working name of a degrowth research and activist network in Poland – which would bring together people involved in this topic’, sending an email to all potentially interested parties. Joint (on-line) meetings, thematic seminars and subsequent conferences began. In 2021, Polish translations of Kate Raworth’s ‘Doughnut Economics’ and Jason Hickel’s ‘Less is More’ were already available, and a year later, many members of our group co-authored the influential Polish publication Za piec dwunasta koniec swiata. Kryzys klimatyczno-ekologiczny glosem wielu nauk [The world is ending at five to twelve. The climate and ecological crisis – the voice of many sciences]. Same year, and an issue of Kultura Wspólczesna devoted to degrowth was published. In 2023, the book Obwarzanek po polsku [Doughnut in Polish] was published, discussing Raworth’s concept on a local level, as well as the first comprehensive Polish publication devoted to degrowth and ecological economics – Uspolecznianie antropocenu. Ekowerwa i ekologizowanie ekonomii [Socializing the Anthropocene. Ecoverve and the Ecologizing of the Economy] by Ewa Binczyk (a special issue of Civitas journal  also dates from this period). Let us not forget the translations of Tim Jackson’s works (Prosperity Without Growth 2015; Post-Growth. Life After Capitalism 2024).

At the end of last year (2025), after more than a year of work, we also published a book entitled Dewzrost po polsku (Degrowth in Polish). Following workshops at the Gniazdo Climate Activism Centre in Warsaw, we decided that such a book in Polish, set in the Polish context, is very much needed today. We hope that this book will be an impulse, an inspiration for both individual action and broader reflection on socio-economic change towards sustainable degrowth, which must happen quickly, as there is not much time left.

During the degrowth conference in Zagreb in 2023, Michal Palasz co-founded the International Degrowth Network. Since then, we have been representing our group – and region – more and more often at meetings organised by the network, both online and at subsequent degrowth conferences in Pontevedra (2024) and Oslo (2025), which bring together thousands of people from Europe and around the world. It is largely thanks to these fantastic conferences that our team has become more diverse, with activists, people involved in public policy-making or trying to practise degrowth in business, as well as students studying degrowth in Barcelona, joining the mainly academic members. Our activities also contributed to several new people from Poland joining the group of students there. Karolina Pietrzak, Ewa Rewers, Bogna Stefanska, Zofia Krajewska – this is about you, thank you for your courage!

We are currently preparing to organise a regional conference – Degrowth: bridging green and just in CEE, a meeting of people from Central and Eastern European countries at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, to get to know each other better and work together, strengthening our regional voice (and also to avoid travelling by train to the other end of Europe, as we avoid flying; the conference will take place on 16-19 June 2026, and we are accepting applications until 28 February).

If you speak Polish, we invite you to join our Dewzrost Polska group (write to us at: dewzrost@riseup.net), and above all to create your own local groups, networking academic circles with cultural and artistic organisations, degrowth businesses (e.g. cooperatives), non-governmental organisations and people who are close to degrowth values and who want to live differently than in the ‘capitalist workaholic culture’.

Why does Central and Eastern Europe want to talk about degrowth differently?

For us, the regional conference is more than just an event where we meet activists, practitioners, artists and researchers from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Our experiences with degrowth on the international stage have given us insight into both what CEE can contribute to degrowth and what the Western model of degrowth fails to take into account, even though it is important for CEE.

Let’s start with the positives. From the post-war years to the 1990s, most countries in Central and Eastern Europe experienced a different political system than Western Europe. Living in a situation of scarcity meant that certain behaviours that are necessary and promoted today were a matter of course at that time. The reuse of the same glass bottles – and the deposit system for them – existed long before the European Green Deal. Food independence through the ownership of private gardens, both home gardens and allotments, as well as the non-monetary exchange of goods between neighbours, were the norm. High security, low inequality, social action – all this already existed. The problem, however, is the unresolved trauma of the socialist economy. The shock transition to capitalism caused the displacement of decades of practices that were and are useful. Central and Eastern Europe must work through this trauma and learn from it – there were bad things, such as surveillance, oppression and deprivation, and no one wants to return to them. But there were also good things – practices that have been well preserved in local communities or in the everyday lives of older people, often discredited by pro-consumerist Western models. These are worth fighting for.

In Central and Eastern Europe, and beyond, there are many initiatives that can be described as unconscious or unintentional degrowth. These include neighbourhood greengrocers, local bakeries, equipment repair shops, shoemakers’ and tailors’ workshops, and food cooperatives, including nationwide ones such as Lewiatan and Jubilat. These are businesses outside the web of predatory chains, which have remained at their optimal size for decades, do not grow, and do not need to. This has already been studied outside Poland, particularly in the Czech Republic, but it requires both in-depth research and action on their behalf in the region.

There are also points where Western and Central and Eastern perspectives on degrowth will clash. The most obvious example is the issue of demilitarisation, which has become quite clear in the context of Russian aggression against Ukraine. Repeatedly cited as a key issue for the movement, demilitarisation sounds different when the neighbouring countries are France or Portugal than when they are aggressive Russia and Belarus. How can we understand the indisputable need for demilitarisation in the presence of an arming neighbour planning to recreate ‘its’ sphere of influence? We do not know the answer to this question, which is why we believe it must be asked.

Likewise, support for a sovereign and democratic Ukraine seems to us beyond dispute. Yet in conversations and discussions with our colleagues from the West, voices sometimes emerge claiming the issue is more complex, arguing that because imperialist USA supports Ukraine, Russia must somehow be an ‘anti-imperial empire’… From our perspective, solidarity with Ukraine is crucial, as is the separation of geopolitical and human dimensions. Millions of refugees from Ukraine have found shelter in Central and Eastern Europe, we know their perspective and we stand with them. Next to the Palestinian flag, the Ukrainian flag (and many others) must fly.

Any discussion of the future of degrowth in our region must also address the future of Russia. We all know that Russia is not monolithic, that there are vast numbers of people opposed to terror and supportive of socio-environmental transformation. Will we be able to unite above the heads of the warring hydra? Above historical and cultural divisions, for a good common future?

And what about another sensitive issue: the economic asymmetry between former Eastern Bloc countries and the wealthy Western economies? For many regions of Central and Eastern Europe, the narrative of ‘slowing down growth’ sounds less like a promise and more like a veiled threat – especially given the significant gap in living standards and economic well-being compared to Western Europe. Can degrowth, and degrowth proponents, find answers that do not stem solely from the experiences of Barcelona and the prosperity of the ‘old EU’ countries?

Greetings from CEE

The above is only an outline of some of the issues that seem relevant to degrowth from the perspective of CEE (CEE itself is not entirely clear to us – does it also include East Germany, and perhaps Austria?). And this perspective is not new, let us emphasise – degrowth conferences have already been held in Budapest and Zagreb, as well as in Vienna and Leipzig, and the flagship degrowth enterprise – greetings to Cargonomia – is located in Hungary. So, we are neither new nor original, but that is not what we are about. As we know, there are many forms of degrowth, and no single universal concept for such a transformation. We are trying to tailor its various pieces to fit together better.