This article sees the twin green and digital transitions as a central challenge that calls for rethinking the economic development model in the 21st century. It argues that economic growth based on quantitative expansion generates profound environmental crises and social inequalities, making a paradigm shift toward qualitative growth essential. Within this framework, it proposes reconciling digitization with sustainability, by orienting technological transformation toward improving the quality of life rather than the mere accumulation of wealth. Based on a critical review of the impacts of digitization and the limitations of conventional approaches to measuring development, it explores alternatives for integrating social justice, ecological limits, and technological progress. The article contributes to the debate on how to articulate an economic model that responds to contemporary challenges without reproducing the extractive dynamics of traditional growth.

Circular economy is an alternative to the linear “extract-use-dispose” economic model, based on the ideas of recycling, repair and reuse. The circular economy promises to turn the trade-offs of unsustainable economic growth in a limited planet into synergies that make sustainability a growth strategy. The knowledge base of the circular economy, however, is highly divided and characterised by controversy over the very possibility of circularity itself. This paper asks why such a controversial idea has gained so much traction in public policies, at the EU level and at lower scales, such as the urban level. Although the focus on win-win solutions was understandable in the context in which the first circular economy policies were formulated in the EU, in the current context this policy framing may obfuscate more than it enlightens by rendering debates about complex sustainability issues technical and apolitical.