In 2020, in the midst of the first wave of lockdowns due to the pandemic, the municipality of Amsterdam announced its strategy for recovering from this crisis by embracing the concept of the “Doughnut Economy.” The model is developed by British economist Kate Raworth and popularized through her book, “Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist”, released in 2017. Here, she argues that the true purpose of economics does not have to equal growth. Instead, the aim is to find a sweet spot, a way to balance the need to provide everyone with what they need to live a good life, a “social foundation” while limiting our impact on the environment, “the environmental ceiling.” With the help of Raworth, Amsterdam has downscaled this approach to the size of a city. The model is now used to inform city-wide strategies and developments in support of this overarching idea: providing a good quality of life for all without putting additional pressure on the planet. Other cities are following this example.
What is the Doughnut Economic Model?
Raworth arrived at the “doughnut” image by describing two circles, one inside the other. The outer circle is inspired by a diagram she came across while working for the anti-poverty nonprofit Oxfam. There, a group of earth-system scientists was looking at the environmental conditions that make life on Earth possible. They identified a set of “planetary boundaries,” a set of limits that, if crossed, would permanently damage the climate, soils, oceans, biodiversity, and consequently, humanity’s conditions for life. This outer ring relates to issues such as climate change, air pollution, biodiversity loss, ozone layer depletion, and ocean acidification.
While Raworth recognized the importance of striving to remain below this ecological ceiling, she also understood that this is only one side of the problem. If the outer ring described a maximum, she also devised an inner ring to represent the minimum conditions everybodyf needs to lead a good life. Derived from UN’s sustainable development goals, the inner ring addresses pressing problems such as access to food and clean water, good quality housing, energy, healthcare, education, social equity, the right to a political voice, justice, and opportunities for work and income.
The goal is to live in balance with these two sets of conditions, to achieve the goldilocks area between the inner and outer ring of the doughnut, between the upper ecological ceiling and the base social foundation. Raworth’s theory is specific in describing the end result, but it does not prescribe a recipe for achieving it. Instead, it challenges stakeholders to look at the larger picture and to understand the impact of their decisions on multiple factors and city actors.
How and Why is Amsterdam Employing It?
In April 2020, the Municipality of Amsterdam approved the Amsterdam Circular 2020-2025 strategy with a two-year initial practical action plan. The strategy is modeled after an adapted version of Kate Raworth’s doughnut model, making it the first municipality in the world to adopt the concept officially. Created in collaboration with Raworth, the down-scaled model is called a City Portrait, a holistic snapshot of the city aiming to serve as the starting point for big-picture thinking, co-creative innovation, and systemic transformation, according to the released strategy. It also aims to become a stimulus for cross-departmental collaboration within the city, involving a wide array of actors in the decision-making processes that shape the environment.
By conducting this exercise, Amsterdam authorities discovered that 20 percent of city tenants were unable to cover their basic needs after paying rent. At the same time, just 12% of the approximately 60,000 online applicants for social housing were successful, as reported by the Guardian. The first solution might be creating more homes, but the same model showed that Amsterdam has significantly increased its carbon dioxide emissions in recent years. Marieke van Doorninck, Amsterdam’s deputy mayor, draws the conclusion that the city needs to continue to invest in the building sector, but that the city also needs to regulate these initiatives to ensure builders use sustainable materials as often as possible.
One of the flagship construction projects in Amsterdam is Strandeiland (Beach Island), part of IJburg, an archipelago of six new islandss reclaimed from the waters on the southeastern side of the city. Throughout the building process, a number of decisions were taken to reduce the impact of the development. Materials were transported by boats running on low-emission fuel, and the foundations were laid using processes that don’t hurt the local wildlife while protecting citizens from rising sea levels.
Time reports the statements of Lianne Hulsebosch, the project’s sustainability adviser: “It’s not that every day-to-day city project has to start with the doughnut, but the model is really part of our DNA now. You notice in the conversations that we have with colleagues. We’re doing things that 10 years ago we wouldn’t have done because we are valuing things differently.”
Can the Model be Replicated?
While Amsterdam is the first municipality to officially adopt the strategy, it is not the only city interested in this model. According to Time magazine, in 2019 C40, a network for cities focused on climate action, worked with Kate Raworth to create reports on Amsterdam, Philadelphia, and Portland, showing them where they stand in relation to the doughnut. Amsterdam ended up adopting the principle through its city-wide strategy.
In June 2022, Copenhagen decided also to follow Amsterdam’s example. Brussels, the Belgian capital, is also testing the theory at different scales. One of their initiatives is refurbishing an abandoned mint of the Ministry of Finance with the goal of “minimizing the environmental impacts and maximizing the social impacts.” Another initiative was the Arc-en-Ciel housing project in Molenbeek, which allowed inhabitants to design and build the structure according to their needs and follow the code while minimizing their footprint by using passive thermal regulation systems.
By the end of 2022, the small city of Dunedin, New Zealand, joined, as did Nanaimo, in British Colombia. In the US, Portland, Oregon, and Austin, Texas, are planning to initiate their own versions of the concept. While all of these strategies are inspired by the doughnut model, they interpret the concept in ways adapted to their specific needs and opportunities.
The Doughnut is not a prescriptive model. It does not offer a road map. Instead, it presents an optimistic end result to strive towards: ensuring a good quality of life for everybody without overtaxing the environment. The path to achieving this might look different for every region: wealthier cities or countries could find their main challenges are related to the outer ring of the doughnut, lowering their footprint to fit within the planetary boundaries. Meanwhile, low or middle-income regions might struggle more to bring everybody out of the center of the doughnut and into its inner ring, ensuring equal access to basic needs such as food, education, and opportunities to grow.
This article is part of the ArchDaily Topics: Circular Economy. Every month we explore a topic in-depth through articles, interviews, news, and architecture projects. We invite you to learn more about our ArchDaily Topics. And, as always, at ArchDaily we welcome the contributions of our readers; if you want to submit an article or project, contact us.
Editor's Note: This article was originally published on March 02, 2023.
