Sustainability and fiscal policy: bridging economic frameworks for global equity and ecological balance

Abstract The challenges of the twenty-first century require a transformative approach to fiscal policy, one that aligns economic systems with ecological integrity and social equity. This paper explores six major sustainability-oriented economic frameworks: Green Growth (GG), Degrowth (DG), Post-Growth (PG), Doughnut Economics (DE), Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It addresses the question of whether these frameworks can be combined to provide a consistent and comprehensive basis for fiscal policy implementation to enable a just transition. Through a comparative analysis, the paper examines these frameworks’ vision of the economy, their relationship to growth, the role of the state and money, and their use of fiscal policy. It proposes an integrative pathway that uses MMT to create fiscal space and applies differentiated, context-specific GG and DG strategies, ultimately converging on a PG steady-state economy based on the DE vision of a ‘safe and just space for humanity’. The paper also emphasises the importance of recalibrating the SDGs to incorporate insights from transformative paradigms regarding distribution and ecology. While offering a conceptual synthesis, the paper also raises critical questions for further research. This interdisciplinary approach aims to overcome fragmentation in sustainability discourse and provide actionable insights for designing fiscal policy in the face of planetary and societal crises.