Doughnut
economics
Can a region meet everyone’s needs within the means of the living planet?
The doughnut, proposed by the economist Kate Raworth, sets two limits at once. Its inner ring is a social foundation: the minimum of food, water, housing, health, education, energy, voice and equity below which no one should fall. Its outer ring is an ecological ceiling: the planetary boundaries that human pressure should not push through. Between them lies a safe and just space for humanity (Raworth, 2012, 2017).
The doughnut names the destination. Planning decides where that space is built, for whom, and who carries the cost of getting there.
Start with a permit ↓Downscale the doughnut ↓Choose your pathway ↓Theoretical framework
Analysis
Vision
Strategy
Evaluation
One permit, two boundaries
On 29 May 2019 the Council of State, the highest Dutch administrative court, ruled that the national nitrogen programme (PAS) could no longer serve as the basis for permits. The programme had allowed activities that emit nitrogen near protected nature on the promise of future restoration measures. European law requires that such benefits be certain in advance, and the court found that they were not (Raad van State, 2019).
The ruling reached far beyond farming. In Amsterdam, the second phase of Strandeiland, with roughly 3,000 homes, became uncertain, and other housing projects were reviewed case by case (AT5, 2019). A region short of homes and a landscape overloaded with nitrogen had met in the same permit file.
This is the problem the doughnut makes visible. Planning decisions sit on two boundaries at the same time. A strategy that builds homes by ignoring ecological limits fails one ring. A strategy that protects nature while leaving people without homes fails the other.
Which side of the doughnut?
Decide, then open each card.
A shortage of affordable homes in the Randstad.Think first, then open +
Housing is one of the twelve dimensions of the social foundation. A shortage means some people fall into the hole in the middle.
Nitrogen deposition on protected heathland and dunes.Think first, then open +
Nitrogen and phosphorus loading is one of the nine planetary boundaries. Excess deposition pushes beyond the ceiling.
A housing estate that cannot get a nature permit.Think first, then open +
The same decision sits on both rings. Solving one by ignoring the other only moves the problem.
Two boundaries, one space
Raworth first drew the doughnut in a 2012 discussion paper for Oxfam (Raworth, 2012). It joins two bodies of work. The ecological ceiling comes from the planetary boundaries framework, which identifies Earth-system processes whose disruption risks pushing the planet out of the stable conditions of the last ten thousand years (Rockström et al., 2009; Steffen et al., 2015). The social foundation draws on the minimum social standards internationally agreed in the Sustainable Development Goals (Raworth, 2017b).
Figure 1. The doughnut. Shortfall grows inward from the social foundation, overshoot outward from the ecological ceiling. Schematic, not to scale; ecological status after Richardson et al. (2023).
- food
- health
- education
- income and work
- peace and justice
- political voice
- social equity
- gender equality
- housing
- networks
- energy
- water
- climate change
- ocean acidification
- chemical pollution
- nitrogen and phosphorus loading
- freshwater withdrawals
- land conversion
- biodiversity loss
- air pollution
- ozone layer depletion
The image works because it refuses a trade-off that much policy takes for granted. Social progress may not be bought with ecological overshoot, and ecological protection may not be bought with social shortfall. Both must be addressed together (Raworth, 2017b).
No country is in the doughnut
The doughnut has been measured. The results are uncomfortable for rich countries as much as for poor ones.
planetary boundaries were transgressed in the 2023 assessment: climate change, biosphere integrity, land-system change, freshwater change, biogeochemical flows and novel entities (Richardson et al., 2023).
countries among more than 150 studied meet the basic needs of their residents at a globally sustainable level of resource use (O’Neill et al., 2018).
countries crossed biophysical boundaries faster than they achieved social thresholds; under current trends, overshoot deepens without ending shortfall (Fanning et al., 2022).
O’Neill et al. (2018) also found that physical needs such as nutrition, sanitation and access to electricity could probably be met for everyone within planetary boundaries. More qualitative goals, such as high life satisfaction, would currently require two to six times the sustainable level of resource use. Their conclusion matters for planners: the way provisioning systems are organised, including housing, mobility, energy and food, decides how much need is met per unit of resource.
From a model to a way of thinking
In Doughnut Economics, Raworth (2017a) proposes seven shifts in economic thinking. The third column is our translation for regional planning, not Raworth’s.
| Shift | What Raworth argues | For a regional strategy |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Change the goal | From GDP growth to meeting the needs of all within the means of the planet. | Judge a regional strategy by shortfall and overshoot, not by regional product alone. |
| 2 See the big picture | The economy is embedded in society and the living world, and depends on households, the commons, the state and the market. | Map care, commons and public provision alongside markets. |
| 3 Nurture human nature | People are social, reciprocal and adaptable, not only rational individual maximisers. | Design for cooperation as well as price incentives. |
| 4 Get savvy with systems | Economies are complex and dynamic, full of feedback loops, not mechanical equilibria. | Look for reinforcing loops, delays and tipping points. |
| 5 Design to distribute | Distribute value, ownership and opportunity by design, instead of waiting for growth to trickle down. | Ask who will own land, energy and infrastructure. |
| 6 Create to regenerate | Replace linear, degenerative industry with circular, regenerative design. | Close material loops and restore ecosystems. |
| 7 Be agnostic about growth | Build an economy that helps people thrive whether or not it grows. | Test whether the strategy depends on continued growth to work. |
Distributive and regenerative by design
Two of the seven shifts carry most of the weight for planners. Raworth argues that twentieth-century economies were degenerative and divisive by default: materials flowed in a line from extraction to waste, and income and wealth concentrated. The answer, she argues, is to make economies regenerative and distributive by design, not to repair the damage afterwards (Raworth, 2017a, 2017b).
Regenerative
Materials cycle, energy comes from renewable flows, and land use restores soils, water and habitats. This is where the doughnut meets the circular economy.
Circular economy →Distributive
Value is shared through ownership of land, energy, housing and enterprise, and through access to knowledge and public provision. This is where the doughnut meets the commons, energy democracy and public goods.
The commons →Public goods →Design here means institutional as well as spatial design. A regenerative building that only wealthy households can rent is regenerative without being distributive. A cooperative that owns a fossil-fuelled heat network is distributive without being regenerative. The doughnut asks for both.
Downscaling the doughnut
Planetary boundaries are global, but decisions are made in countries, provinces, regions and municipalities. Translating the global doughnut to a smaller territory is not a matter of dividing by population.
Häyhä et al. (2016) propose three steps. The biophysical step asks at which scale each process operates: climate is global, water scarcity belongs to a catchment, nitrogen deposition to a landscape. The socio-economic step asks where impacts fall once trade is counted: a region’s consumption can cause land conversion and water stress on other continents. The ethical step asks what share is fair, given different responsibilities, rights and capacities.
Figure 2. Four lenses for a regional doughnut, adapted from the city portrait methodology of the Thriving Cities Initiative (Raworth, 2020b).
Cities that adopt the doughnut usually work with four lenses: local social, local ecological, global social and global ecological. The local lenses ask what it would mean for people and nature in the place to thrive. The global lenses ask what the place owes to people and ecosystems elsewhere (Raworth, 2020b). The first version of the methodology was written for cities in the global North, because of their responsibility to act first and fastest.
Since 2018 the Dutch statistics office has published a Monitor of Broad Prosperity with three perspectives: here and now, later for future generations, and elsewhere for the pressure Dutch welfare places on other countries (CBS, 2018). The elsewhere perspective does the work of the doughnut’s global lenses. Use it as a data source for your region.
- Nitrogen, water and land conversion are largely regional: map them inside your territory.
- Climate change is global: account for the region’s emissions and those embedded in what it consumes.
- Social dimensions are local and personal: map who falls short, where, and why.
- Material footprints are global: ask where the region’s steel, food, solar panels and batteries come from.
Amsterdam, April 2020
On 8 April 2020 Amsterdam launched the Amsterdam City Doughnut, developed by the Doughnut Economics Action Lab with Biomimicry 3.8, Circle Economy and C40 Cities in the Thriving Cities Initiative. The city placed it at the heart of its long-term vision, and a coalition of more than 30 organisations formed around it. Raworth described the city portrait as a tool and a starting point, not an assessment of the city (Raworth, 2020a).
The city portrait framed the Amsterdam Circular Strategy 2020–2025. Its targets are to halve the use of new primary raw materials by 2030 and to become fully circular by 2050, working through three value chains: food and organic waste, consumer goods, and the built environment (Gemeente Amsterdam, 2020).
- A shared language linking social and ecological goals across municipal departments.
- A network of civic initiatives organised around the model.
- International attention, followed by other cities and regions adopting city portraits.
Comparing Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Glasgow, Calisto Friant et al. (2023) found Amsterdam’s approach holistic more on paper than in practice. The strategy did not redistribute wealth, power or property from high-consuming groups, and social policy remained tied to the pursuit of economic growth.
Adopting the doughnut is a statement of intent. Whether it changes who owns, who decides and who consumes is a separate question.
Is the doughnut against growth?
Raworth asks for an economy that is agnostic about growth: one that helps people thrive whether or not GDP rises (Raworth, 2017a). It is one of the most debated parts of the model.
Growth agnosticism
Stop treating growth as the goal. Some places still need their economies to grow to meet basic needs; others need to stop depending on growth. The doughnut sets the boundaries and leaves the growth path open.
The degrowth critique
Degrowth scholars argue that in high-income countries a planned reduction of material and energy throughput is needed, and that economies built to grow cannot simply become indifferent to it (Hickel, 2020; Kallis et al., 2018). On this view, agnosticism postpones the hard choices.
The Amsterdam evidence gives the critique some weight: growth remained a policy objective even under the doughnut (Calisto Friant et al., 2023). For a regional strategy, the useful question is concrete. Does your strategy only work if the region keeps growing in jobs, inhabitants and floor space? If so, say what happens to the social foundation when it does not.
What the doughnut does not tell you
The doughnut is a powerful frame. Used alone, it leaves important questions open.
A compass, not a map+
Raworth herself calls the doughnut a compass: it shows the direction, while the map of how to get there still has to be drawn (Raworth, 2017b). Your strategy is that map.
Thresholds are choices+
Where the social foundation lies, and which indicators measure it, are normative and political decisions. Say who set them and why.
Procedure and recognition are thin+
The doughnut is strongest on distribution. It says little about who decides or whose knowledge counts. Combine it with spatial justice.
Averages hide people+
A regional doughnut can look healthy on average while particular groups fall far short. Combine it with the capability approach, which asks what each person can actually do.
Power is in the background+
The model names inequalities of wealth and power, but it does not explain how they are produced or how to change them. Political economy and the commons fill that gap.
Scale is slippery+
A region can move into its local doughnut by exporting overshoot elsewhere. Without the global lenses, local success can be an illusion.
Read every intervention against both rings
A doughnut assessment does not end with a portrait. It tests what each proposed intervention does to shortfall and to overshoot, and for whom.
| Intervention | Social foundation | Ecological ceiling | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deep retrofit of social rental housing, financed so that rents do not rise | ▲ better | ▲ better | Lower energy bills and emissions together; who pays decides the social effect. |
| New car-dependent housing estate on farmland | ▲ better | ▼ worse | Homes are added, while land conversion, emissions and car dependence rise. |
| Voluntary buy-out of livestock farms near protected nature | ● depends | ▲ better | Nitrogen falls; income and work in the area may fall unless a transition plan follows. |
| Large solar park owned by an outside investor | ● depends | ▲ better | Emissions fall; local benefits and voice depend on ownership. |
| The same solar park co-owned by a local energy cooperative | ▲ better | ▲ better | Ownership adds a distributive gain, if membership is open. |
| Regional data centre attracted with cheap land and grid priority | ● depends | ▼ worse | Jobs and tax revenue; high electricity and water use and grid congestion. |
Figure 3. Reading interventions against both rings. Invented examples with our own illustrative judgements, for practice. Your own assessment must be argued with evidence.
Look for interventions that move both rings in the right direction, and for conditions that turn a one-ring gain into a two-ring gain. Ownership, financing and who is allowed to join are often those conditions.
Using the doughnut in your regional strategy
Eight steps take you from a portrait to a strategy.
Choose one pathway, keep the others as safeguards
Do not try to measure all twenty-one dimensions in depth. Choose the pathway closest to your strategy’s main objective and use the others to check for blind spots.
ASocial foundation+
Use this pathway when your strategy is mainly about housing, energy poverty, access to services, work or political voice.
- Which social dimensions fall short in the region, and for whom?
- Where are the shortfalls concentrated?
- Which provisioning systems produce them?
- Does the strategy close the gap for those furthest below the line?
A social shortfall map with the groups and places most affected.
BEcological ceiling+
Use this pathway when your strategy is mainly about emissions, nitrogen, water, land, materials or biodiversity.
- Which boundaries does the region overshoot, at which scale?
- Which sectors and land uses drive the overshoot?
- Which pressures fall inside the region and which elsewhere?
- How far does the strategy bring pressure back under the ceiling?
An overshoot profile, separating regional and global pressures.
CDistributive design+
Use this pathway when your strategy proposes new ownership, cooperatives, public provision or value capture.
- Who will own land, energy, housing and infrastructure?
- Who captures the value created?
- Who can join, and who is left out?
- Does the design redistribute power as well as income?
An ownership and value map of the main interventions.
DGlobal responsibility+
Use this pathway when your strategy depends on imported materials, energy, food or labour, or exports waste and emissions.
- What does the region consume that is produced elsewhere?
- Which overshoot and shortfall does that cause elsewhere?
- Is the region’s apparent success exported?
- What fair share of the global ceiling can the region claim?
A global-lens account using consumption-based data where available.
Does the strategy move people above the foundation and pressure below the ceiling at the same time, without exporting the difference to someone else?
Is your strategy in the doughnut?
Answer these twelve questions for your Q3 strategy.
Eight ways to get it wrong
Drawing a doughnut for the region and stopping there.
Using national or global thresholds without asking whether they fit the region.
Reporting regional averages that hide who falls short.
Counting only emissions produced in the region and ignoring those embedded in what it consumes.
Treating the circular economy as the whole of the ecological ceiling.
Leaving out ownership, so that a regenerative design ends up benefiting a few.
Assuming growth will pay for the social foundation without testing what happens if it does not.
Presenting the doughnut as a neutral technical tool, when thresholds and priorities are political choices.
A safe and just space, for whom?
The doughnut gives planning a clear direction: no one below the foundation, no pressure above the ceiling. Its power lies in holding both limits at once, and in refusing to let one excuse the other.
It does not decide who builds the safe and just space, who owns it, who is let in, or who pays for the transition. Those are planning and political questions, and the doughnut leaves them to you.
Can your strategy bring everyone in the region above the social foundation and keep the region’s pressure below the ecological ceiling, without pushing either problem onto other people, other places or later generations?
Where to go next
A short path into the field. Full references are below.
Doughnut economics: the book.
The two-page summary in The Lancet Planetary Health.
Where the ecological ceiling comes from.
A good life for all within planetary boundaries?
Shortfall and overshoot of nations over time.
How to downscale planetary boundaries fairly.
A critical look at Amsterdam’s doughnut in practice.
The degrowth case.
The texts behind this page
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Calisto Friant, M., Reid, K., Boesler, P., Vermeulen, W. J. V., & Salomone, R. (2023). Sustainable circular cities? Analysing urban circular economy policies in Amsterdam, Glasgow, and Copenhagen. Local Environment. https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2023.2206643
CBS. (2018, May 16). Monitor Brede Welvaart 2018. Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek. https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/publicatie/2018/20/monitor-brede-welvaart-2018 Accessed on: 15 October 2026.
Fanning, A. L., O’Neill, D. W., Hickel, J., & Roux, N. (2022). The social shortfall and ecological overshoot of nations. Nature Sustainability, 5(1), 26–36. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00799-z
Gemeente Amsterdam. (2020). Amsterdam circular strategy 2020–2025. City of Amsterdam.
Häyhä, T., Lucas, P. L., van Vuuren, D. P., Cornell, S. E., & Hoff, H. (2016). From planetary boundaries to national fair shares of the global safe operating space: How can the scales be bridged? Global Environmental Change, 40, 60–72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.06.008
Hickel, J. (2020). Less is more: How degrowth will save the world. William Heinemann.
Kallis, G., Kostakis, V., Lange, S., Muraca, B., Paulson, S., & Schmelzer, M. (2018). Research on degrowth. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 43, 291–316. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-102017-025941
O’Neill, D. W., Fanning, A. L., Lamb, W. F., & Steinberger, J. K. (2018). A good life for all within planetary boundaries. Nature Sustainability, 1(2), 88–95. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-018-0021-4
Raad van State. (2019, May 29). Programma Aanpak Stikstof (PAS) mag niet als basis voor toestemming voor activiteiten worden gebruikt. https://www.raadvanstate.nl/stikstof/@115651/pas-mag/ Accessed on: 15 October 2026.
Raworth, K. (2012). A safe and just space for humanity: Can we live within the doughnut? (Oxfam Discussion Paper). Oxfam International.
Raworth, K. (2017a). Doughnut economics: Seven ways to think like a 21st-century economist. Random House Business.
Raworth, K. (2017b). A doughnut for the Anthropocene: Humanity’s compass in the 21st century. The Lancet Planetary Health, 1(2), e48–e49. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(17)30028-1
Raworth, K. (2020a, April 9). Introducing the Amsterdam City Doughnut. Resilience. https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-04-09/introducing-the-amsterdam-city-doughnut/ Accessed on: 15 October 2026.
Raworth, K. (2020b, July 20). So you want to downscale the doughnut? Here’s how. Resilience. https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-07-20/so-you-want-to-downscale-the-doughnut-heres-how/ Accessed on: 15 October 2026.
Richardson, K., Steffen, W., Lucht, W., Bendtsen, J., Cornell, S. E., Donges, J. F., et al. (2023). Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries. Science Advances, 9(37), eadh2458. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458
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