ABSTRACT
In search for a suitable policy for sustainable development of economy and society, one inevitably encounters the debate between the representatives of a green-growth economy and the representatives of a de-growth economy. While the strategies of the green-growth economy involve the promotion of efficiency, in particular the promotion of energy efficiency, the representatives of the de-growth economy call for a decoupling of the economy from growth. While a de-growth economy may theoretically be able to reduce the ecological damage of today’s lifestyle and economies, it often lacks political feasibility for the proposed policies and measures. A green-growth economy that focuses on promoting energy efficiency, on the other hand, is therefore criticized for being ineffective and so for contradicting the paradigm of sustainability. In this chapter, the authors discuss which policy can meet the paradigm of sustainability and which normative basic questions have to be asked. The focus here is on the question of how a policy of energy efficiency improvement can fit to the concept of sustainability, and which hurdles there are in general for sustainable governance that must be discussed normatively.
