Moving beyond the tacit goal of endless economic growth:
Escaping outdated paradigms through Doughnut Economics?
An interview with Kate Raworth
by Maria Jordet
“Doughnut Economics places the doughnut itself as the goal. And that goal is to meet the needs of all people within the means of the living planet.”
This is how Kate Raworth begins responding to my question[1] about what Doughnut Economics offers that previous economics models have not. In the occasion of Raworth’s guest lecture (May 28th) for the fifth edition of the EoF School, I had the opportunity to ask some questions to her. Raworth further elaborates on her answer:
“This means Doughnut Economics centers the human rights of all people on Earth, and it centers the ecological integrity of life on this planet. So, it centers life and then asks what kind of economy would be in service to life.”
For us in the Economy of Francesco (EoF), these sentences echo the initial invitation from Pope Francis in 2019 – to create “a different kind of economy: one that brings life not death, one that is inclusive and not exclusive, humane and not dehumanizing, one that cares for the environment and does not despoil it.”
In fact, Raworth’s vision for a radically new economic system that is regenerative and distributive, placing human and ecological well-being at the heart, has inspired the Economy of Francesco (EoF) since its very beginning. Already in 2020, Raworth offered a talk within a global EoF webinar with around 2000 youths in the session “We are All Developing Countries”. As Valentina Rotondi (2020) pointed out in her comment then, Raworth has a special capacity to transform complex issues into concrete examples.Since then, the Doughnut Economics Action Lab – a platform that translates Raworth’s powerful ideas into practice – was launched (September 2020) as well as the Economy of Francesco Foundation (September 2025).
Her guest lecture for the EoF School became a significant meeting point for innovative ideas, as both Raworth and the EoF share a commitment: it is embedded in the title of her lecture – to ‘escape outdated paradigms.’
But where does Raworth’s thoughts come from? She explains drawing from many different schools of economic thought:
“In fact, all the schools of thought I was never taught myself – from ecological economics, feminist economics, complexity economics, behavioral and institutional economics. There are insights in many disciplines, and Doughnut Economics seeks to bring them together to dance on the same page.”
Raworth further highlights the accessibility and playfulness of her approach. This, she says, stands in sharp contrast to kind of economics that people have in mind when they hear the very word “economy”: something intimidating, dry, remote, inaccessible – for the elite.
“But when we put the word doughnut in front of it, people know that this is different. They know it’s a place to play. They know it’s a place where they’re invited.”
This has led to Doughnut Economics not only being taken up by many communities around the world, but it has also brought new people into the conversation about economy—one that they might never have felt they belonged to.
Raworth underlines how everybody has something to contribute with and argues for a radical inclusivity:
“Because we are all part of the economy. We make up the economy ourselves and we are embedded in it in our everyday lives. So, it’s a really crucial opening to invite everybody to be part of this conversation.”
Of course, as she points out herself: the Doughnut Economics approach is not the first to center life in the space of new economics. She lifts up indigenous cultures and refers, among others, to the Maori scholar Shane Edwards:
“Indigenous cultures have cosmovisions and concepts of thriving, of well-being, of prosperity, which deeply inform the concepts within Doughnut Economics. So, I just want to be very clear that Doughnut Economics isn’t the new first way of looking at the economy differently. Indigenous cultures, I believe, have great insights that we can all learn from. Doughnut Economics comes out of a Western economic mindset and is an attempt, I think, to walk back towards a wisdom that’s been long held in many other cultures.”
When asked where her personal sense of urgency derives when it comes to challenging and moving beyond outdated economic paradigms, she takes us back to the time when she was studying economics at the university in the 1990s. While Raworth was driven by a wish “to learn the mother tongue of public policy” to help change the world, she soon became frustrated:
“Because the very issues that I cared most about, such as the health of the planet and the environment, such as social justice in tackling inequalities, I felt that these were peripheral. They were at the margins of the syllabus. You had to chase them down. You had to take optional papers in them if you really wanted to study them.
Given the crises we face today, global climate and ecological breakdown, extremes of global inequality and concentration of power, it’s essential that today’s students are equipped with an economic mindset that centers these issues. Because my frustration is that the syllabus taught in the vast majority of universities in the world has barely changed in its foundational concept.”
She continues:
“It still treats the living world as an add-on if you’re interested in studying it.
It still often starts with markets.
It still focuses on financial value.
And this is really a travesty because today’s economic students will be the policymakers who take this world through 2050.
They are the future economists, but also the future politicians, the future business leaders, the future journalists, the future lawyers who will shape the direction of this world.
And so, the mindset that they’re taught, even if they study just a little bit of economics, the mindset of how we are taught to think about the economy and its relationship to people and its relationship to the rest of the living world is fundamental in shaping whether or not we will have the capacity to turn around this situation.”
As Pope Francis did, also Raworth believes in the younger generation of economists:
“I feel really passionately that today’s students who’ve signed up to study economics, often taking out large loans in order to do so, they see the realities of the world. They see the world ahead for them for their whole lifetimes. Many of them will live to 2100.
They have every claim on being taught an economic mindset that actually will give them strong chance of turning this situation around. And so, it’s essential to rewrite the economic curriculum and equip those students with the tools and the mindset and the thinking that they need and absolutely deserve.”
It was in 2012 that Raworth published the article A Safe and Just Space for Humanity, where she posed the intriguing question in the subtitle; “Can we live within the doughnut?” Since then, the doughnut-concept has evolved into a compelling movement, and further articulated through her influential book Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist (2017). For us in the Economy of Francesco, it is also of particular interest to learn more about how Doughnut Economics has been applied in practice:
“So, since my book came out in 2017, it’s been thrilling to discover how many people in different places and contexts wanted to turn these ideas into practice. And that’s what led me to co-found Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL). The name is very intentional. It’s all about putting these ideas into action. And it’s a lab because it’s a deep experiment in how we start to bring about economic transformation and starting where it’s just getting started. So, we work with those who want to put these ideas into practice.
We go where the energy is.”
And where is the energy? Raworth tells about working within city and regional governments, local governments of towns, of districts, of counties, of cities, of provinces. In fact, people within governments, such as mayors, have reached out to her and requested the concepts and tools of Doughnut Economics to be enabled to bring about real transformations in their local communities: “And so, they adopt it and start to put it into practice.”
What are the main lessons you have learned from these initiatives?
“I first of all learned that there are people everywhere in every kind of institution who want to make change happen. And people start to do that when they believe that there are other people like themselves who are already in action.”
Raworth particularly lifts up the power of peer-to-peer inspiration, which she describes as massive:
“Amsterdam was the first city in April 2019 to publish its Doughnut City portrait, a portrait of the city through the lens of Doughnut Economics.
And just six weeks after it did, the city of Copenhagen, not far away, voted with an overwhelming majority to explore what it would mean for them too.
This is a really strong example of peer-to-peer inspiration.”
It did not stop there. Instead, today there are more than 50 towns, cities, districts around the world that are publicly using Doughnut Economics at the heart of their city vision or their strategy, Raworth tells further:
“There are another 50 that are experimenting with it behind the scenes or in early stages we are learning so much from these policy makers of how they’re turning a concept into action. So, it’s a real iterative and participatory practice-led approach to bringing about transformation.”
She talks engagingly about the resilient determination of people not willing to let the many obstacles in the bigger system hinder their initiatives to begin, even if these cannot fully thrive under the current conditions:
“What strikes me also in this, is that people every place is embedded within a bigger system. Every town is in a district, is in a country, is in a region in the world. And so, no person or policymaker has full control over what they would need to really drive this change. And yet they start, they begin anyway.
People just get started knowing that they won’t be able to go the whole way without wider change happening, but they get started.”
In the book “Let us Dream” written by Pope Francis (2020), he acknowledges Raworth’s “fresh thinking about the economy needed in light of the pandemic”. A main theme in the book is how the time of crisis is a time to make decisions – and that one can either come out better or worse of the crisis, but never the same. In Raworth’s experience, many people have in fact turned to the doughnut concept after a crisis:
“The city of Melbourne in Australia, for example, was hit by wildfires, then COVID, then wildfires. And it was after these repeated crises that they then said there must be another way. And that’s the point at which they turned to Doughnut Economics and placed the concept of the doughnut at the heart of their vision for what’s now known as ‘Regen Melbourne.’ They have a beautiful website describing what they do and inviting people to get involved.”
Finally, one last question can be asked: What is your invitation to young entrepreneurs, economists and change-makers?
“My invitation is to be aware of the founding ideas that deeply shape how you think about the world and to place life and the thriving continuation of life and the beauty of living systems at the heart of your vision.
So, whether you’re designing a product, designing a company, designing a social action, or designing a policy, using the tools of Doughnut Economics or tools like them that place life at the center, place respect for all human beings and their human rights, and place the integrity of all living beings in the planetary system, placing these at the heart of our vision and being aware of how much we are shaped by the foundational concepts.
Also believing that things can change. In the 20th century, there were major economic changes. First, the introduction of Keynesianism after the Second World War, but then also the introduction of neoliberalism from the early 1980s on. Systems have changed massively and can change again and will change again.
And I think there’s huge inspiration to be taken from practice and the pioneers who start things. I think we’re all inspired when we see people doing something that we thought was impossible, but there’s somebody just like me who’s already doing it.
So, to get started, to place life at the heart of your vision, to embrace these new ideas and join community, it’s so much easier to start doing this when we know that we’re surrounded by others who face similar challenges – but also who may have come up with really related and inspiring solutions to a challenge we might face.
And I wish them huge luck because we need it!”
The timing of Raworth’s lecture is special as we are preparing for the first Global Event since the passing of Pope Francis – to take place in Rome 28-30th November 2025. Raworth’s insights in the guest lecture will continue to enrich our discussions, especially as we confront harsh challenges of our world—the expanding arms industry and the immense suffering in places like Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan. Raworth’s vision is a call to prioritize the needs of all people within the planet’s ecological limits, visualized through the image of the doughnut. As Raworth reminded of during her guest lecture, it is crucial for any movement – whether Doughnut Economics or the Economy of Francesco – to remember that we are not islands.
One last (meaningful) note: At the very same time as Paolo Santori and I met online with Raworth to prepare for the upcoming guest lecture in the EoF School, white smoke came out of the pipe by St. Peter’s church – and some minutes later, our new Pope Leo XIV greeted us with the words: “peace be with all of you!”. Words of hope that we will embrace along our path of repairing economics!
