Postgrowth S.A.: Vigo

Postgrowth S.A.: Vigo was the second edition of the series and a citizen science study aimed at understanding how to shape a fair and sustainable blue economy from Vigo. It started from the premise that energy transitions are not only technological processes but also territorial, economic, ecological and political ones, so that, beyond whether a technology is renewable, we need to ask how it is decided, who takes part, who bears the costs and who receives the benefits. It was coordinated by the Post-Growth Innovation Lab at the Universidade de Vigo, with funding from FECYT and the collaboration of Vigo City Council, between July 2024 and November 2025.

Seven schools in the municipality took part, state, state-assisted and private, with 310 students and more than 15 teachers, organised into twelve groups and sixty in-person sessions. Students investigated a single case, the development of offshore wind on the south-west coast of Galicia, from five complementary dimensions, ecology, economy, society, ecological transition and open science, with one school responsible for each. Combining interviews, documentary analysis and an online survey, the fieldwork gathered 101 interviews, 22 documentary analyses and 341 survey responses.

The five dimensions converged on a single diagnosis, that the main problem with offshore wind lies in governance, with little effective participation, scant equity among the actors involved and limited transparency. The team synthesised the results into a policy agenda with ten lines of action and a social recommendations guide, which were sent to 24 coastal municipalities. On 3 June 2025 students presented five scientific posters, one per dimension, at the international conference III SIBECOL and XVII AEET Meeting, held in Pontevedra.