I’ve spent the last two decades working on climate impact and waste assessment for companies and governments across the United States, and have watched as local sustainability efforts have flourished while the global environmental picture becomes more and more grim. One of the biggest challenges I’ve seen is that the traditional metrics of sustainability–carbon footprints, waste reduction targets, efficiency gains–are designed to drive localized, regional progress. These measures of ‘success’ overlook a crucial reality: when we cut costs and resource use in one place, consumption often increases somewhere else in the world. As sustainability professionals leading the charge for a more just and regenerative future, our biggest challenge today is not merely advancing existing measures of ‘success.’ Instead, we must fundamentally reimagine our relationship with an economic system that prioritizes growth above all else and shift toward one that values health through balance and harmony with nature. When the planet is healthy, we are healthy.

This reality is pushing sustainability leaders to ask harder questions: How can we create genuine prosperity while respecting Earth’s ecological limits? What would it look like to build a materials economy that serves both people and planet? The answers require us to examine not just how we manage materials, but how we think about growth itself.

• First, there are ecological constraints. The global economy must operate within Earth’s ecological limits – thresholds for resource extraction, land use, and pollution that we are currently exceeding.We simply cannot sustain current levels of ecological demand. 
• Second, there are efficiency limitations. Our current materials economy is deeply interconnected: when one company reduces its material use, the saved resources are typically invested into other parts of the economy, driving further growth and consumption. Time and experience have proven that efficiency gains do not actually reduce resource use, unless they are paired with a commitment to limit demand. 

Finally, there are equity concerns. The benefits and burdens of our materials economy are not shared equally. While ~10% of global society controls 90% of the wealth, billions still lack access to basic resources for a dignified life., Shifting our economy towards alternative and more efficient technologies alone will not address this fundamental imbalance.

Humans’ fossil-fueled economy has pushed the global climate past its natural limits: recent highly visible weather events related to our changing climate are symptomatic of pushing past ecological constraints. This isn’t unique to climate–all natural systems have boundaries and it is now time for us to work within the boundaries of a healthy, thriving planet. 

The factors that drive ecological change on planet earth are connected to commodity flows that operate across political boundaries, meaning reduced demand in one part of the economy is easily offset by increased consumption in another. For example, the U.S. has reduced its fossil fuel demand over the past two decades, but the global economy has easily reallocated those savings in the planetary push for economic growth. In practice, efficiency gains are often redirected into making more products, feeding a cycle of continuous growth that ultimately leads to more extraction, more waste, and more strain on our planet’s systems. 

The reality is that social foundation metrics are not being met for many across the world and yet we are exceeding planetary boundaries, atmospheric CO2 levels being just one of several ecological emergencies. Raworth’s work has been effective at helping sustainability professionals break from efficiency as a marker of environmental impact reduction, instead pairing planetary-scale impact metrics with socioeconomic ones like equity and access. 

Here are some steps to begin:

1. Foster Dialogue: Sometimes asking questions like “How much is enough?” or “How can we use less?” are enough to spark a conversation that questions the growth paradigm in a constructive way. You can share and build on writings that critique growth–influential works like Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth, Less is More by Jason Hickel, and Braiding Sweetgrass and The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer provide valuable perspectives. The Degrowth Institute’s discussion toolkit also offers practical resources for sparking conversations. 
2. Integrate Global Contexts: Add a global economic perspective to your projects. For example, consider what happens to financial and resource savings enabled by efficiency measures. Can these savings be reinvested in ways that increase equity or protect the environment, instead of prompting more consumption? What are the risks that resource demand resurfaces elsewhere in the economy? Asking such questions can shift the focus toward systemic change.
3. Stay Motivated: Breaking from growth-centric paradigms is crucial for self-regulating our economy within planetary boundaries. Although unprecedented in modern times, this shift promises significant social and environmental benefits and recent summaries in Ecological Economics offer concrete policy proposals.

For those based in the U.S., various organizations—including the Post Growth Institute, CASSE, Arketa Institute, and DegrowNYC—are advancing the movement through discussion, debate, and action. 

About the Author

John Mulrow, PhD
Executive Director, Degrowth Institute
Adjunct Professor, Purdue University

John Mulrow is Executive Director of the Degrowth Institute and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Environmental and Ecological Engineering at Purdue University. His work is focused on improving environmental assessment methodology through perspectives that prioritize social equity and limits to growth. He holds a PhD in Civil Engineering from University of Illinois Chicago and a BS in Earth Systems from Stanford University. 

Beth’s piece focuses on the need for greater regulation to require the use of green building strategies, and I argue that the same is true for healthy building materials. When designers, builders, and developers choose toxic materials, they risk liability for the harm they cause to the users of their spaces as well as those involved along the supply chain.  

As architects and designers, we bear a profound responsibility to shape the world around us, not just aesthetically, but also ethically and responsibly. Our designs don’t exist in isolation; they interact intimately with the lives of individuals, communities, and the environment. In this regard, the materials we specify play a pivotal role in shaping the health and safety of the spaces we create.

Cost & Performance:
From a material cost point of view, healthier materials can often be comparable to the price points of more toxic materials. However, the time and labor hours spent researching, validating, and tracking healthier material selections and certifications can significantly add to total project costs, and this is often a barrier to designers’ selection process. The reality is, it takes less time to select finishes when we’re only focused on performance and aesthetics, without the added layer of validating and certifying material health properties too. 

There’s little motivation for clients to choose healthy materials:
Clients are faced with a variety of pressures and priorities, like staying within budget and getting the project done on schedule. They also might assume that the government is regulating and eliminating toxic products from the market – which is not the case. Without awareness and the drive from company values, regulatory requirements, or consumer demand, there may be little motivation for clients to choose healthier materials, especially in any case where there is a cost premium. As much as designers can advocate for healthier materials on our projects, we are often limited by project priorities and available project fee hours.

Navigating the complexities of certifications–information overload:
With all of the project responsibilities designers must juggle, and a vast landscape of material certifications with different levels of rigor and limited considerations beyond the use phase, it can be overwhelming and burdensome to understand and navigate healthier material product selection. After all, we are not scientists!

For example, it’s common for housing developers to opt for Luxury Vinyl Tile (LVT) due to its durability, easy installation, and low first cost. However, we can see by looking at the Informed Product Guidance that LVT is in the red category. Phthalates, chemicals known to disrupt the hormonal system, were once commonly found in LVT. While in recent years we’ve seen more and more phthalate-free LVT products become available, even “better” vinyl is still not a preferred material! This is because of the toxic processes required to make polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and the toxic pollution created when it’s disposed of. And let’s not forget, vinyl is a form of plastic derived from fossil fuels, so its use continues our reliance on the polluting fossil fuel industry at a time when we are electrifying our buildings to decrease fossil fuel use.

What does that all really mean? Not only can building products have negative health impacts on the daily occupants of a space, they often impact installers, factory workers handling the material production, and the communities living near those processes. And unfortunately in the case of housing, renters are likely unaware of any of this when selecting a place to live. Which brings us back to the dilemma for designers: is it really ethical to specify a material when we know its negative health impacts? And if we make the decision to take care in our specifications, how can we encourage our clients to approve healthier alternatives?