1: Defining Sustainable Economic Growth

Over the last decade, almost every single politician or world leader across the globe has stressed the need for sustainable economic growth, just before explaining why they are best positioned to deliver such growth to their electorate. “Sustainable” has become the adjective of choice to describe economic growth in today’s world, perhaps as a counterbalance to the increasingly negative reputation that unfettered economic growth has garnered in recent years and the clamor for more equitable, well-being-oriented policies. And of course, this choice of adjective has filtered down to practically every aspect of our lives, from personal finances to marriages – everyone insists on using the word “sustainable” to describe their end goal across these myriad domains. Sustainability has well and truly taken over our world, at least from a lexicological perspective. Nonetheless, there is a small catch – does anyone truly know what sustainable economic growth actually entails, or indeed what it should look like? In many respects, the concept of sustainability bears more than a passing resemblance to another enduring, ethereal mystery, namely the Holy Grail, coveted by knights, fedora-bearing explorers and middle-aged pseudo-scientists alike, and the subject of endless books and YouTube videos. Despite the passage of time, many are still enamored by the search for the grail, and as at the time of writing no fewer than 200 vessels across Europe, from Valencia to Genoa, have been claimed as the real grail. A truly miraculous feat befitting such a magical object and its apparent multiplicative capabilities, but which may have more to do with overzealous prelates eager to claim a slice of the lucrative religious tourism market and the (sustainable?) economic growth that ensues for local businesses. And yet a key contributor to this anomalous situation is the fact that no one really knows what the grail is supposed to be – is it a cup, or perhaps a plate, or even a person? With this buffet of choices, no wonder everyone claims to possess the grail, because nobody knows what it actually is, so to put it mildly, the audit trail is somewhat flawed.