
The toolkit provides guiding questions for discussion, problem-solving and redesign for each of the following pillars: Sources: Kate Raworth, Global Policy Journal, The AlternativeĮight principles of practice that help get people thinking like doughnut economistsįive layers of organizational (re)design for businessesĭEAL has put together a doughnut economics toolkit for businesses that uses systems thinking and deep design principles to shift and transform the way we think about some of the fundamental elements that make up businesses. Regenerative businesses have a central mission to improve the world around them by creating or returning more value in service to society, environment and the global economy than it extracts. Distributive enterprises feature open-source product design and business operations to enable collaborative innovation and open-source economic and business development. Shifting from divisive and degenerative to regenerative and distributiveĪ fundamental facet of doughnut design as spearheaded by the Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL) is the imperative for principles of regeneration or distribution. The twelve dimensions of the social foundation referred to by Kate Raworth are derived from internationally agreed minimum social standards, as identified by the world’s governments in the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. The planetary boundaries comprising the ecological ceiling are laid out by Rockstrom et al., who refer to the area within them as the “safe operating space for humanity.” Exceeding these boundaries will trigger unacceptable environmental degradation and irreversible tipping points in Earth systems. Doughnut economics applies systems and design thinking to re-assess the way the field of economics and businesses in general are structured from the bottom up. Kate Raworth described the doughnut in the 2012 publication “A Safe and Just Space for Humanity: Can we live within the doughnut?” Its implications for the field of economics is laid out in more detail in the 2017 book “ Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist.” While Raworth’s critiques of neoclassical economic theory are far from the first, her doughnut economics model offers a distinct characterization that centres the linkages between the economy and the environment. Doughnut economics aims to recalibrate the way people think about economics from the ground with the goal of “fully the needs of all within the means of the planet.” The doughnut itself is a visual representation of this mission: it is expressed as one circle (humanity’s social foundation) – drawn and centred within a larger circle (the planet’s ecological ceiling).
