Steward-Ownerhsip and Degrowth?
Owning for the future:
Exploring Steward-Ownership as a Pathway to Degrowth-Oriented Business
Our economy is built on the assumption of endless growth. For decades, economic growth has been the benchmark for progress. But infinite growth on a finite planet is simply impossible.
Steward-ownership challenges this paradigm by redesigning how we own and govern companies. But how does this model fit within the idea of a degrowth transition? And what potential does it hold?
In my master’s thesis, I explored the potential of steward-ownership as an ownership model for businesses aligned with degrowth principles. I interviewed 20+ Dutch and German steward-owned companies to understand their motivations, challenges, and systemic impact. I wrote a Master thesis and translated my results into a Toolbox for We are Stewards.
Steward-ownership meets post-growth: a toolbox for entrepreneurs
I translated the results into a Toolbox for Steward-Ownership Entrepreneurs, which was published by We Are Stewards. In the toolbox, entrepreneurs can find inspiration from both theory and practice to explore and develop strategies for aligning their businesses with ecological and social limits. Drawing on insights from over 20 Dutch and German steward-owned companies, the toolbox builds on my master’s thesis research.
The strategies are organised around five key dimensions:
1. Size and scope: How can localisation, local embeddedness and a size limitation help companies to be rooted in their communities and respond to local social and ecological needs?
2. Strategy: How can a strategy of working towards sufficiency be realised by for instance sustainable material use, using profit for ecological restoration, high quality products and promoting sustainable consumption? But also: cooperation and activist engagement.
3. Governance: How can democratic, participatory and decentralized governance and transparency help steward-owned companies to take next steps?
4. Ownership: Steward-owned companies are perfectly positioned to work on post-growth strategies, enabled by having a mission lock, long term thinking and being able to create room for democratic governance.
5. Relationship to profit: With a limit on the distribution of profits, steward-owned companies can create a different relation to profit. How can a purpose driven company realise organic growth, non-growth or non-profit opportunities? And how can spaces for reflection create opportunities to reinvent what growth means and how profit can be redistributed to contribute rather than extract?
