You can be pro-sustainability and pro-growth. Examples are (product-neutral) carbon tax and solar&nuclear power.
You can also be anti-growth and disguised as pro-sustainability. Examples are being anti-consumerism, anti-energy-abundance (including being pro-solar without solving for intermittency), and meat tax (i.e. singling out a single product that you don't like).
"More efficient devices" also falls in the second category, as (1) it's pursuing energy-scarcity, not energy-abundance, and (2) it's usually implemented as "uses less energy by being worse" (e.g. dishwasher that runs longer, cars with lesser range) not "uses less energy by being more efficient" (prime example are actually petrol cars, which have massively increased in efficiency in last few decades).
We need to be pro-growth but it is difficult to balance that with sustainability. For example:
In practice, carbon taxes are easy to game and are counter-productive. The companies prioritize profits (growth) to the exclusion of sustainability; the governments are bureaucratic and slow, so they're always years behind the businesses playing the game.
> "uses less energy by being more efficient" (prime example are actually petrol cars, which have massively increased in efficiency in last few decades).
Jevon's Paradox is that as resource usage becomes more efficient (cheaper), there is a _greater_ overall use of the resource. This isn't bad per se, but it does mean that greater efficiency will not lead to reduced usage.
Nuclear power is one of our best current options, even though it's often derided for cost. But in lots of ways, we can't stop developing nations from burning fossil fuels, so energy developed nations produce from other sources can be use to capture those emissions.
You can be pro-sustainability and pro-growth. Examples are (product-neutral) carbon tax and solar&nuclear power.
You can also be anti-growth and disguised as pro-sustainability. Examples are being anti-consumerism, anti-energy-abundance (including being pro-solar without solving for intermittency), and meat tax (i.e. singling out a single product that you don't like).
"More efficient devices" also falls in the second category, as (1) it's pursuing energy-scarcity, not energy-abundance, and (2) it's usually implemented as "uses less energy by being worse" (e.g. dishwasher that runs longer, cars with lesser range) not "uses less energy by being more efficient" (prime example are actually petrol cars, which have massively increased in efficiency in last few decades).