Ecospirituality and sustainability transitions: agency towards degrowth

Abstract

‘Sustainability transitions’ has emerged as one of the most important and influential literatures on understanding the pathways towards a more sustainable future. Yet, most approaches in this literature privilege technological and regime-wide innovations, while people’s agencies, grassroots innovations, and social factors more generally are often underrepresented. This article focuses on the role of ecospirituality as worldview, aiming to understand how spiritual and religious beliefs play an important role in practical, everyday sustainability transitions. In an extensive desk-based study, literature across disciplines is reviewed to explore connections between spirituality, pro-environmental behaviour, climate policy, and sustainability agencies. Showing the importance of ecospiritual practice, the purpose of this article is to make a case for the inclusion of ecospirituality, as worldview, in the study of sustainability transitions. We argue that ecospirituality is a significant dimension to understanding people’s contemporary agencies that shift away from endless economic growth and resource efficiency mantras towards more radical worldviews of degrowth and different ways of achieving happiness and fulfilment in life.