The 12th conference of the European Society for Ecological Economics (ESEE) took place in Budapest from the 20th until the 23rd of June. The IPE was represented by the research director Mladen Domazet, Branko Ančić, Marija Brajdić Vuković, Junior Research Fellow Lilian Pungas and Logan Richardson, intern from Furman University of South Carolina.
After the opening ceremony with the ESEE president Irene Ring and the subsequent general reception on Tuesday evening, the conference started on Wednesday morning with tremendous input. The following days had several morning keynotes, parallel panel sessions, poster presentations, optional programs, another two sets of parallel panel sessions and afternoon keynote presentation. A constant struggle on deciding on the most interesting and/or relevant panel sessions (between nine simultaneous panels) as well as an attempt to have somebody from the IPE in each panel important for the Institute’s research work seemed to shape the somewhat hectic course of the following days. Conference inputs included issues such as the pro-environmental behavior and its determinants across Europe, Planetary Boundaries framework, its operationalization and thresholds for various indicators, social metabolism and systems approaches, Degrowth and Climate Justice, to name a few.
Mladen chaired the panel about “Ecological economics in sustainability and degrowth transformations”, and presented the work of the IPE about “Degrowth-compatible environmentalism in Europe” on another panel session about “Theoretical and political journeys between environmental justice and degrowth”. Branko and Logan presented the Institute’s research poster about “Silent degrowth” and Marija gave a presentation on the climate change concerns in academia at a panel about the power of science on knowledge production and use.
Evenings were followed by getting to know some of the other 500 researchers at the conference and planning collaborative projects while drinking Hungarian white wine (or beer) in one of the different venues of the conference. After four intensive days of great input all IPE members came back to Zagreb with way too many new research ideas, collaboration plans and lots of inspiration.
More information about the ESEE conference can be found here.
