This paper offers a theory-oriented, narrative review and conceptualisation of degrowth in the fields of sustainable marketing and consumer research. We trace how environmental concerns have been addressed across successive marketing approaches, showing how such initiatives remain tethered to the growth imperative. We then introduce the growth paradigm and synthesise three critiques levelled against it: the ecological limits, the diminishing social returns, and the postcolonial critique. Building on this, we conceptualise degrowth for marketing and articulate key thematic research areas in the field: demarketing and selective downscaling, sufficiency-oriented policy, consumer sovereignty and the culture of limits, plural post-growth imaginaries, and politically engaged scholarship. We conclude by highlighting the broader implications of a degrowth turn for rethinking the ideological foundations and normative assumptions of marketing.
Lloveras, J., & Pansera, M. (2025). Degrowth: a literature review and conceptualisation for sustainable marketing and consumer research. Journal of Marketing Management, 1-31. https://doi.org/10.1080/0267257X.2025.2572966