Project description
Integrating Degrowth into the law: the case of batteries
Adopting a degrowth economy is essential for restoring Earth as a safe operating space for humanity. Degrowth involves a planned reduction in energy and resource use to align the economy with ecological limits while reducing inequality and enhancing well-being. The ERC-funded DELaw project will work to embed degrowth principles within legal frameworks to drive meaningful societal change. Through interdisciplinary analysis of EU and Member States’ energy laws, the project will focus on energy storage regulations, particularly for batteries. DELaw will develop a new framework for integrating degrowth principles into the law, test it with EU battery regulations and provide recommendations to EU and national lawmakers for degrowth-oriented legal amendments as environmental challenges grow.
Objective
Research shows that six of the nine identified planetary boundaries have already been crossed. For Earth to once again become a safe operating space for humanity, it is urgent to turn to a degrowth economy. Degrowth means a democratically planned reduction of energy and resource use designed to bring the economy back into balance with the living world in a way that reduces inequality and improves human wellbeing. Although the idea of degrowth dates back to the 1970s, its development in scholarly work significantly gained traction during the 2010s, especially insofar as it was embedded in ecological economics discourse. Yet, degrowth as a research topic for legal scholars is barely nascent.
DELaw aims to find ways to integrate the principles of degrowth into the law, in order to reorientate our society at the required scale and pace. To do so, DELaw proposes an ambitious comparative interdisciplinary analysis of EU and Member States’ energy laws, with a focus on the legal regime for energy storage and especially batteries. Indeed, batteries are at the crossroads between two of the most pressing environmental threats. They are needed to allow higher levels of renewable energy sources and fight climate change, but they rely on critical raw materials such as nickel, cobalt or lithium, the mining of which accelerates biodiversity loss and wreaks havoc on local communities.
Through a solid mix of legal methods, DELaw will generate two ground-breaking results for legal research and for society as a whole. Firstly, the team will create a new methodological framework for the inclusion of degrowth principles into the law, tested with the regulation of batteries in the EU but applicable to other legal fields and jurisdictions. Secondly, DELaw will propose a set of recommendations for when lawmakers both at EU and national levels will look at adopting degrowth-focused legal amendments, a moment that draws closer as time passes and the environmental situation worsens.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsrenewable energy
- social scienceseconomics and businesseconomics
- natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistrytransition metals
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringmining and mineral processing
- social scienceslaw
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Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
06071 Badajoz
Spain