According to the IPCC, in order to resolve the environmental crisis, we need to shift from a growth-centred economy to one based on well-being. The ecological transition therefore requires us to radically rethink not only how we consume and produce, but also how we work. Labour institutions are a key element of our productivist model. In order to imagine credible transition pathways, it is essential to question what we consider to be work and what activities we value.

A new series of seminars, organised as part of the ERC RethinkingWork project led by Elise Dermine, proposes to explore these issues by combining economic, sociological, ecological and feminist approaches. This multidisciplinary approach will open up a cross-cutting reflection on the place of work in a post-productivist society, and on the forms of activity, whether salaried or not, that can truly support a just ecological and social transition.

The series is aimed at researchers, but also at trade unions, employers' organisations, actors involved in socio-professional integration and the fight against poverty. More broadly, it is open to any citizen interested in these issues.

Programme:

• TUESDAY 10/02/2026

The drivers behind trade union mobilisation on environmental issues: the case of Liège Airport

> Speaker: Douglas Sepulchre / Free University of Brussels

> Discussant: Evelyne Jadoul / General Federation of Belgian Labour - Inter-union network for environmental awareness

• FRIDAY 13/03/2026

Economic democracy: experiments and new imaginaries around work

> Speaker: Timothée Duverger / Sciences Po Bordeaux

> Discussant: Julien Charles / Socialist Centre for Continuing Education

• TUESDAY 14/04/2026

What is the quality of green jobs? French results of a quantitative survey

> Speaker: Mathilde Guergoat-Larivière / University of Lille

> Discussant: to be confirmed

• TUESDAY 19/05/2026

Subsistence work and neo-peasantry

> Speaker: Geneviève Pruvost / National Centre for Scientific Research - School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences

> Discussant: Vincent Delobel / farmer, administrator at the United Federation of Farmers' and Breeders' Groups and member of Via Campesina

• TUESDAY 2 June 2026

Ecological metamorphoses of work: André Gorz's anti-productivist critique and its contemporary perspectives

> Speaker: Céline Marty / Logiques de l'Agir, University of Besançon

> Discussant: Laurence Blésin / Confederation of Christian Trade Unions

More information and registration: here