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With around 3000 registered participants, preparations for the Fourth International Conference on Degrowth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity are running at full speed. From 2 to 6 September the whole city of Leipzig will be under the banner of growth critique: Not only at

Leipzig University, the main conference venue, but all over the city there will be scientific, practical and artistic sessions and events.

They cover a broad range of activities: from classic panel discussions and workshops to field trips and a short film-walk through the city.

Nina Treu, one of the conference coordinators, is overwhelmed by the run on the conference: „We were prepared for a great public interest, but I didn't imagine that we would close the registration before time. However, people who didn't get registered can watch the keynotes and panel discussions in our live stream".

At the conference, there will be more than 400 individual events. The majority are scientific lectures, discussions and practical workshops as well as artistic performances. In addition, there will be over 20 panels with renowned speakers like Alberto Acosta, Niko Paech, Giorgos Kallis, Angelika Zahrnt, Adelheid Biesecker, Esperanza Martinez and Euclides Mance.

The opening event will be on Tuesday, 2 September at 19.00 hours. After a musical introduction by local artist Pablo Paolo Kilian, the journalist Naomi Klein, amongst others, will open the
conference with a speech via live stream from Canada. The individual sessions will cover various aspects on an economy and society beyond growth. Examples are the distribution and understanding of labour, education, mobility and also the Euro-crisis.

After the closing panel on Saturday, 6 September, there will be an action-demonstration through Leipzig under the motto "Enough is enough for all". The conference ends with a party with the band „Käptn Peng und die Tentakel von Delphi".

The Degrowth-Conference 2014 explores new ways of organizing the economy. This is also reflected in how the conference works: the organizing team uses grass-roots-democracy to make decisions and strives to apply the degrowth-approach to many areas, for example accommodation and food: Free private accommodation has been provided for many participants and the food offered at the conference will be vegan, organic and mostly prepared from vegetables grown by a Leipzig cooperative.