Doughnut Economics: Creating a safe and just space for humanity (Kate Raworth)

Kate Raworth (former senior Oxfam researcher) makes the case for ensuring inclusive and sustainable economic development takes place without pushing the planet past tipping points that would have huge environmental and social consequences.

Will these Sustainable Development Goals get us into the doughnut (aka a safe and just space for humanity)? New analysis from Kate Raworth (August 2014). Read blog

She talks about debates that question the concept of economic growth and highlights high levels of inequality. The challenge is to find a model that ensures we all have the resources we need to meet our human rights but “collectively we do it within the means of this one planet”.

The core of the doughnut theory is that there are 9 planetary boundaries that we can’t go beyond if we want to keep the planet in a benevolent state for us to thrive in. We have already gone over 3 of these boundaries (by releasing too many greenhouse gases and nitrogen into the atmosphere and biodiversity loss).

Raworth goes on to explain how the doughnut approach can be a way for governments, individuals and companies to make the necessary changes to ensure we reduce poverty and don’t go past planetary boundaries. The doughnut helps us to understand the challenges we face and to come up with new ideas of how to get there.

She argues it’s time to go beyond growth as the objective of economic development and to focus more on investing in the human, natural and social wealth that is the backbone of the economy.