A doughnut as an economic model
Today, our planet and our societies face major challenges, not least in terms of the use of natural resources and social inequality. In order to achieve sustainable development, there is a critical and central aspect: our economy.
Kate Raworth, economist and guest professor at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, has developed a new economic model in the form of a doughnut. The purpose of the model is to achieve a basic standard of living for everyone within the planetary boundaries. Instead of continuing to use economic theories of the early 1900s, with the egocentric rational man as a basis, we must consider the entire system that we are part of, and where nature is the prerequisite for all life, as well as for the economy.
Kate Raworth believes that we must drastically rethink, and ask ourselves, what is economics and what we will use it for? Instead of producing new things, maintaining constant growth and continuing to pollute the environment, we must start thinking about circular systems and understand the economy as a tool for achieving social justice and welfare. What does a growing economy matter when we no longer have enough and clean water to drink?
Hear Kate Raworth tell more during her seminar at SIWI Swedish Water House and the Stockholm School of Economics
