The conference was recently hosted at Trinity College Dublin and organised by the Wellbeing Economy Ireland Hub, together with a team of academics and CSO representatives, including Dr Peter Doran from Queen’s.  

It explored current challenges and discussed how Ireland could follow other countries in developing an economy that served its people and the planet.

Dr Doran, Senior Lecturer from the School of Law at Queen's, founding member of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance for the island of Ireland, and Vice-Chair of the Rethinking Growth Conference Ireland 2024 said: “This all-island conference on Rethinking Growth was a landmark in the policy and academic debate about the future of our economies. Our climate and wider socio-ecological emergency is driven – fundamentally – by a dominant economic system, which has systematically sought to externalise or transfer the costs to people and nature. The Wellbeing Economy Alliance is about convening and curating alternative ways of flourishing for people and planet.”

Other key discussions explored universities' roles in rethinking growth, promoting a just transition, and advancing climate justice, as well as a conversation on rethinking growth with Paschal Donohoe, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform of Ireland.

Dr Linda Doyle, Provost of Trinity College Dublin said: “People and planet should be at the heart of how a global economy is structured. 

“Universities, as places of research, teaching and thinking, have such an important role to play in the any conversation about the future role of economic growth. There are already significant discussions here in Trinity about how we, as a college community, can better live within our ecological ceiling while strengthening our social foundation.”

For more information, please visit: https://rethinking-growth.ie/  

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