Who are we?
Degrowth Estonia (Tasaarengu Eesti) is an advocacy organisation promoting post-growth life in Estonia. Established in 2023, we have individual members from various fields of life, contributing voluntarily to our strategic activities.
Our vision
We work for an Estonia that follows post-growth principles. At the heart of this are a meaningful life, social relations, a more equal society and sufficiency, achieved through democratic processes. People together have achieved wellbeing while remaining within planetary boundaries.
Our activities
- Promoting educational and thematic materials in the society: for example, organising a public reading club.
- Illustrating de-growth through different projects and experiments in everyday practices.
- Contributing to the public discussion on the issues of alternative economic models & wellbeing of people and the planet.
- Advocacy for introducing and institutionalizing well-being indicators in Estonia.
Our focus in advocacy work
As our first big campaign, we want to introduce internationally acknowledged wellbeing indicators into Estonian policymaking – indicators that measure the wellbeing of people and nature, like Gross National Happiness, Better Life Index, Genuine Progress Indicator, Happy Planet Index.
In neoliberal Estonia, economic growth (and its measurement, the GDP) is still regarded as the most important driver for societal development. We want to change that and place the economy within the limits of the planet, and to contribute to restoring nature and human wellbeing as much as possible.
Wellbeing indicators are just one way of intervening, and for pragmatic policymakers in Estonia, numbers matter. We want to guarantee that the “right numbers” are being followed in policy-making: the health of people, the health of nature and the health of democracy.
Activities planned for 2024 and 2025:
- Bringing international knowledge to Estonia through joining the international hubs working on introducing metrics of wellbeing in place of GDP and thereby raising our capacity as an evolving organisation.
- Initiating public discussions to steer public awareness toward the need for viable political alternatives to the prominent growth paradigm.
- Organizing interactive policy labs with policy-makers, researchers, and experts from various sectors to integrate wellbeing indicators into public policy-making.
- Redefining the narrative of a good life through a national citizen assembly.
Want to collaborate with us?
If your organisation / research group
- is looking for partners from Europe to shift the growth paradigm towards post-growth and wants to apply for funding
- wishes to act as a lighthouse for us, advising us on how to advocate the wellbeing indexes in Estonia among policymakers, interest groups and media
- or have worked with wellbeing indexes and want practitioners to spread them into policymaking in different countries
– then let’s talk soon!
Please contact tere@tasaareng.info to indicate your interest to collaborate with us!
Sorry for the long post, here’s a snail
Tasaareng 