School of Law (ETDs)

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Browsing School of Law (ETDs) by Author "Bapela, Mpho"

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    Adopting the theory of degrowth as a means to achieve sustainability in South African law
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Ramsay, Madison; Bapela, Mpho
    Capitalism’s mandate of infinite, exponential growth on a planet with finite, non-renewable resources has resulted in global environmental crisis. Contextualized by South Africa’s industrial Minerals-Energy Complex, this paper submits that the growth imperative of neoliberal fossil capitalism is resulting in unsustainability in South African environmental management. Decision-making is skewed in favour of economic growth at the expense of sustainability. Degrowth is a movement that rejects the growth imperative as compulsory; it is a call not only to do less, but to do differently, a counterhegemonic alternative to capitalism that seeks environmental justice, decolonization of the North-South divide, and alternatives to growth and development. This paper posits that rejecting capitalism’s growth imperative and approaching environmental management from a degrowth perspective can inform sustainability in South African environmental law. It posits that degrowth can find applicability in South African environmental law through its compatibility with ubuntu, which in the context of this study is accepted as a similar counterhegemonic alternative to capitalism. This paper emphasizes ubuntu degrowth as a framework to conceptualize South African environmental management, insofar as it offers a transformative alternative to growth, and to capitalism itself