Growth Debunked for Investors

ABSTRACT Growth and degrowth have become key issues in the discourse on sustainability, and their quantification (growth/degrowth rates) has become integral to the limited number of indicators used to evaluate the ecological aspects of political and organizational decisions. This paper empirically examines the relevance of corporate growth and degrowth indicators for investors whose investment strategies align with the objectives of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Based on financial and environmental data from companies listed in the SBF 120 (the French large‐cap index) from 2016 to 2022, our findings indicate that investors' valuations of environmentally focused (green) firms are positively correlated with financial performance but appear insensitive to fluctuations in these firms' operational growth rates. Through integrating analyses of both green growth and degrowth enterprises, this study contributes to the debate by highlighting how the prevalent binary opposition between these concepts may hinder effective decision making and action. Also, our results prompt us to question the widespread prioritization of economic growth in public discourse. We thus propose adopting an “a‐growth” perspective as an alternative approach to more effectively advance environmental objectives.