MIKE ROY

In her book “Doughnut Economics,” economist Kate Raworth proposes an alternative way to think about economics, and about how we organize our society. Rather than focusing economics on growth in our national gross domestic product, and on a society organized around neo-liberal policies that place faith in markets to provide for our needs, she proposes what she calls “The Doughnut.” In Raworth’s reimagined economic world, the goal of society is to provide a social foundation where all people can thrive. That foundation, inspired by the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, is made up of 12 key parts:

• Food security

• Health

• Education

• Income and work

• Peace and justice

• Political voice

• Social equity

• Gender equality

• Housing

• Networks

• Energy

• Water

The big idea is to organize our world in such a way that everyone in a community not only has a right to all of these essentials, but actually enjoys all of them in reality.

While this proposition is not terribly controversial, where Rawarth breaks from neo-liberal ideology has to do with the constraints that she places on how we go about providing for these essentials. Building on the work of Earth-systems scientists who have described nine planetary boundaries that we ignore at our peril, Rawarth explains that all of our activities must take into account what she calls ecological ceilings. These are:

• Climate change

• Ocean acidification

• Chemical pollution

• Nitrogen and phosphorus loading

• Freshwater withdrawals

• Land conversion

• Biodiversity loss

• Air pollution

• Ozone layer depletion

Put these two together and you get The Doughnut.

This diagram of the “Doughnut” model of the economy shows the sweet spot that exists between ecological boundaries and social needs.
Designed for Kate Raworth/Doughnut Economics

The Doughnut is a powerful way of seeing how all of the work to provide for the needs of our community must also be seen in the light of the limits of our planet, and how the promise of endless growth is one that cannot be kept, because (as we are learning firsthand of late), the Earth’s systems that support human life will at some point collapse through overuse, threatening our ability to provide for the social foundation necessary for humans to thrive.

The community where I live — Middlebury, Vt. — is about to embark on a revised town plan. I believe the Doughnut framework is a useful tool for us as we strive to create the sort of community that provides what Raworth calls a safe and just space. The state of Vermont also has a framework that it asks us to use as we do this planning. Vermont’s framework has many, but not all, of the elements of the Doughnut. However, the Vermont framework does not explicitly adopt the challenge of planning as the Goldilocks problem (not too big, not too small) that connects all the pieces of the puzzle. By connecting all of the pieces into a single complex system, the Doughnut model challenges us to ask at all times whether what we are proposing to do both helps build our social foundation and also respects the ecological ceiling that we must live within.

This fall, the Energy Committee for the town of Middlebury is working with the Planning Commission on updating Middlebury’s town plan through the lens of climate change. For each of the sections of the town plan, the Energy Committee is considering not only what must be done to help improve Middlebury’s social foundation, but also asking ourselves: What are the ways in which our current practices contribute to the breaching of the ecological ceiling, and what can we do to both strengthen the first and reduce the second?

We have reached a critical moment in the climate emergency. The choices we make in the next decade (and to be honest, sooner!) will have a profound impact on what life will be like for us in the coming decades, and for generations to come. There are those who argue that Middlebury and Vermont are tiny places that can have very little impact on the overall change needed. And while it is true that there is much that is out of our control, it is also true that across the state, across the country, and across the globe, we need individual communities both large and small to think about what sort of future they want for themselves and their children, and to do what they can to help bring into being a world that provides for all, and takes into account the limits of the one planet we have.

There are many such communities already doing this work. Let’s join them!

—————

Middlebury resident Mike Roy is the dean of the Middlebury College library, serves as chair of the Middlebury Town Energy Committee and is on the board of the Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County.