Juliet Schor makes this argument persuasively: > It is impossible to move towards a sufficiently sustainable economy without a reduction in working hours. Energy system transformation is not enough. In order to accurately measure greenhouse gas emissions, one must do consumption accounting with the inclusion of exports and imports. > > The relationship between GDP and emissions remains strong and ‘decoupling’ is not happening. ‘green growth’ is a myth. Renewable energy systems expand energy demand rather than replacing fossil fuels. Therefore, we need to slow down growth in energy demand. > > In virtually all studies, working hours are positively correlated with higher carbon emissions. One of these is the GDP relationship. Households who are more time stressed are more high carbon because high-carbon activities tend to be time saving. More sustainable activities tend to be more time consuming. > > However, when we think about campaigning for societal change on this issue, we cannot moralise consumption. To move families and households, we need to give people time rather than money. Therefore, we must reconfigure how the economy works. > > The post-war period productivity group was tied to a wage increase; nowadays we can structurally tie working time reduction to productivity reduction. One such way of doing 8 Achieving a shorter working week across Europe | Issue 8 | January 2021 this is to give people a ‘right to work less’ e.g. in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands from around 1980 up until the late 90s, real wages were barely reduced, productivity increased and working hours were reduced (for example there was a four-day workweek in finance, and all new government employees were on a reduced schedule). > > There are other good reasons to go about reducing working hours, for example, countries with higher working hours are more unequal. This in turn has a harmful impact on greenhouse gas emissions as more unequal the countries tend to be more polluting. --- Source: https://neweconomics.org/uploads/files/workingtime-newsletter8.pdf --- Related: Devetter, François-Xavier, and Sandrine Rousseau. “Working Hours and Sustainable Development.” _Review of Social Economy_ 69, no. 3 (2011): 333–55. Schor, Juliet B. “Sustainable Consumption and Worktime Reduction.” _Journal of Industrial Ecology_ 9, no. 1–2 (February 8, 2008): 37–50. [https://doi.org/10.1162/1088198054084581](https://doi.org/10.1162/1088198054084581).