Degrowth through Energy Law: Using the legal framework for electricity batteries in Europe to achieve a degrowth-focused energy law

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.