Growth

I got to thinking about our strange relationship with growth.  There are many times where growth is good and where it is bad.  But what is strange is how the definition of growth is interpreted.  I had a few thoughts.
I guess the simplistic way to look at it is that we want good things to grow and bad things to stop.  So then it gets down to what you define as good and what you define as bad.

For instance - corporate growth?  Is that good or bad?  If the company is mindful of its impact on the environment and is responsible to its employees and the communities in which it operates, then more of that kind of business is a good thing.
If the company is just growing to earn more profits at the expense of environmental and human health - then maybe that growth isn't such a good idea.

One way that people in business look at growth is to grow market share.  Simplistically this means that the pie of market is already at the size that it is going to be.  Say 10 million people all buying the product for a dollar.  So when a company grows they can either find more pie, which in this example is not an option, or they can take pie away from their competitors.  To me this type of growth within the sustainability world makes the most sense.  We already know we are in a finite world, so we can't really grow the pie anyway.  So why not have the more socially and environmentally responsible companies take away market share from those who are not doing those things.  This way there is growth, but there is growth towards a more sustainable model.

OK then one day all of the companies in the world, all of the products that get used are all sustainable - do we still have growth?  Probably, but growth is not constant it goes up and down so there will be growth to come out of dips.  But really I think WHAT is growing is going to change.

For instance - when we talk about personal growth, we aren't talking about things perse, we are talking about emotional experience, understanding and realizations.  These aspects of personal growth are what make life easier to live, to understand and to appreciate.  Really it is what makes people happier.  And this circles back to growth of "things" is not making us happier.  So how can we take that ideas of personal growth and incorporate them into business?
Maybe one day I will pay a company for the privilege of growing and sewing my own shirt.  What I am purchasing is acquiring the personal growth of the experience to learn a new skill set.  Buying experiences is one option.  But one thing is the world doesn't have enough resources for it to remain the same as the growth in stuff we know today.