How can we escape outdated ideas - the ones that harm us because they disconnect us from each other and from the rest of the living world? I have been grappling with this question ever since I studied economics because I was taught as so many of us are, that the shape of progress is an ever-rising line of growth. No matter how rich a nation already is, no matter how destabilized the climate, no matter how degraded the land, how unequal the people, the answer always given is yet more growth. If we are to learn to belong again in the community of life on this delicately balanced living planet, we need to escape that shape, and come to find something that enables us to thrive. And here’s how we could get started: The most powerful tool is already in your hand or very nearby. It’s not a phone. It’s not a credit card. It’s a pencil ... because with a pencil we can redraw the world. The power of pictures - images shape how we see the world, what we put at the center of our vision, what we leave at the periphery, what we make visible, what we leave invisible. So I invite you to pick up your pencil and draw with me. We’re going to start with a new picture that actually enables us to thrive. So here we go: Draw a big circle. Go for it. Draw a big circle with that pencil. Draw a big circle in the air - the circle that safeguards and protects the life supporting systems of our planetary home: a stable climate, fertile soils, healthy oceans, abundant biodiversity, and a protective ozone layer overhead. And if these are the outer limits of thriving, then there’s an inner limit too, so draw a smaller one inside. Beautiful. That is a space for every person to have the resources we each need to thrive. Leave no one falling short on the essentials of life. Ensure that everybody can have a life of dignity, opportunity, and community. So when you put these two together, the inside and the outside, yes, it looks like a doughnut, the only one that actually turns out to be any good for us. And the message is incredibly simple: leave no one in the hole. Don’t overshoot the limit. And the space in between that social foundation and ecological ceiling, that is where we can thrive, and the space of the shape of progress, the shape of progress is instantly transformed. It’s no longer an ever-rising line. It’s thriving in dynamic balance. It's a shape that many indigenous cultures have known for millennia. The question is, Can the Western mindset and culture come to understand it again? Can we learn again to belong? And if you do it with your hands, just do this with your hands. It's like, oh, beautiful. It's like a heartbeat. It's like a heartbeat, and it connects us to bodily health, and we already know deeply within our own bodies that health lies in balance. We can take that. What we know from our own bodies, from the human health to planetary health, we give ourselves an invaluable opportunity of actually learning to belong again. I first drew this picture some years ago, and I was amazed by how much traction it had immediately. That is the power of pictures. But what really fascinated me was that people then started to take it off the page and actually put it into practice. Teachers from Mumbai to Manchester started teaching it in their classroom, long before it was on the curriculum. Town planners from KwaZulu-Natal to Stockholm started designing doughnut districts that would enable everybody to live in this space. Community groups from Amsterdam to Melbourne started mobilizing, saying “We want to make our city live this way.” So inspired by all of these, a small team of us set up the Doughnut Economics Action Lab. Action because it’s all about putting ideas into action; Lab because this is one big experiment. How can we escape those old ideas and replace them with ones that we can spread and scale at the speed that these times demand? We are blown away every day by the creativity of the community that’s working with us. And here’s what we’re learning about how to make ideas worth spreading, spread in the way that we need: First, embrace play. Lots of people are afraid of economics. Say the word. Now back off, stiffen up, or switch off. Doughnuts, you might love them or hate them, but you’re not afraid of them. And so doughnut economics just invites play. It says, “Show up with your humor, with your mischief, with your fun, even as we tackle some of the world’s most intractable challenges.” Doughnuts invite the game-makers to the table, so that we can finally escape the competitive dynamics of Monopoly, the games that separates us and leave only one left in the game, and instead come up with games based on cooperative, collaborative rules where we win and play together and nurture the best of human nature in the process. Play invites the dancers to the stage from Colombia to Cornwall, people literally starting to embody that space of dynamic balance in their bodies, and as we see them, we start to feel that too. Play brings kids into the streets. They paint, they chalk, they design, they imagine with startling clarity and understanding that can take adults ages to get to, and the kids just get it. So bring your play. If you want to help ideas spread in scale, invite people who share your purpose to adapt it. to hold on to the integrity of the core concept, but make it speak to their culture, their context, their imagination. If doughnuts aren’t your thing, make it a bagel, a jelly bean, chambella, simmit, or flip it inside out and make this incredible Maori interpretation of the social and planetary boundaries, and then enjoy the contrast and the tension of those perspectives because it's often in that contrast that new ideas evolve. People around the world have been down-scaling the doughnut to their region, their city, their town, bringing their own data and analysis, asking “Are we meeting the needs of all people here? Are we living within the means of the planet?” And I can tell you, there’s not one place in the world that we’ve yet found that can say that it is. So this is a journey of transformation everywhere. But these local doughnut dashboards, they give us a glimpse of the kinds of metrics that are actually going to enable us to guide ourselves through this century - the metrics that will tell us whether or not we’re thriving, and they won’t be measured in the terms of money. These are metrics that measure life in its own terms - human metrics, natural metrics. This is the beginning of a data revolution that will make it like a living skin. Almost in real time, we will be able to see how and when and whether we are thriving. If you want to help ideas to spread and scale, celebrate the people who are actually putting them into practice, who are making it work in their work, because sometimes the most powerful form of protest is to propose something new. So here’s to the teachers from the Philippines to Amsterdam who bring doughnut thinking to their classroom, whether it's with primary school students or university undergraduates. And those teachers who have the humility to admit that we are all, teachers and students alike, unlearning and relearning, and sometimes it will be the students who do the teaching. Here’s to the community groups from Rio de Janeiro to Birmingham who are going neighborhood by neighborhood, street by street, starting new conversations. What would it mean to thrive here, to have a regenerative economy here, to have a distributive economy? How can we build that neighborhood from the street up? Here’s to the designers and the architects who are literally putting the doughnut on the design board and asking how can we create the things we will use, the places and spaces we will live in the future that enable us to live in this space of balance? And here’s to the city policymakers, from the mayors to the councillors who actually step up and say, “Let’s take on that ambition. What would it mean here to aim for our city to be a home to thriving people and a thriving place, while respecting the well-being of people and the health of the whole planet? What would it mean to actually start to believe we can do that?” And in all of this, it unleashes peer-to-peer inspiration, because sometimes the most inspiring person is not someone on the TV, in the news, on a stage, on a podcast; it’s someone just like yourself who’s already doing that thing that you thought was impossible or hadn’t yet imagined. A teacher inspires a teacher; a mayor inspires a mayor. When the city of Amsterdam put the doughnut at the heart of its policy to create a fully circular economy, that triggered interest and ambition amongst cities from Copenhagen to Glasgow to Nanaimo to Brussels and far beyond. And that means that what every one of us does or doesn’t do has a ripple effect amongst our own peers that we may not realize. A 17-year-old girl can speak to teenagers in a way that no adult can touch, but a 70-year-old man can influence his peers in a way that others can’t come close. If you want to escape old ideas and help new ones to spread and scale, draw them. Embrace the power of play. Invite people to adapt them with integrity. Celebrate those who are putting them into practice. Unleash the power of peer-to-peer inspiration, but don’t get carried away. Don’t try to become the movement; join the movement. Because it's going to take a whole ecosystem of ideas and organizations and inspiration and action to bring about change on the size and scale that’s required. No one idea can do everything, so make sure your idea can connect with others and respect others and be part of something far, far bigger than any one of us can be. So can we simply dance and draw our way into the doughnut? Of course not. But I profoundly believe we will not get there unless we learn to see anew and embody new dynamics to make it real in our lives. That is how we bring about a deep transformation. So I invite you to imagine yourself stepping into the doughnut, standing in that space. What does it feel like to be in a place where we thrive? And I can’t help but notice that this room is already half a doughnut, so I think we’re going to have to sing this one into life. Now I know you've not done this before. Don't worry, I haven't either. This is a world first. We're going to sing the doughnut to life right here. So the first three rows, OK, first three rows you with me? Here’s what you’re going to sing: (Singing) Leave no one in the hole. Thrive, thrive, thrive. Audience: Leave no none in the hole. Thrive , thrive, thrive. Kate Raworth: Again. KR and Aud: Leave no none in the hole. Thrive , thrive, thrive. KR: Fantastic OK. And those of you right around the edge? Here we go. (Singing) Don’t overshoot the limits. Thrive thrive thrive. KR and Aud: Don’t overshoot the limits. Thrive, thrive, thrive. KR: Again, KR and Aud: Don’t overshoot the limits. thrive, thrive, thrive. KR: Brilliant. Now, as you know, with a doughnut, the thing is we have to do both sides at the same time, so we’ll sing the front and then the back and then the front and the back. Let’s see if we can sing this doughnut into being. You ready? KR and Aud: Leave no one in the hole. Thrive thrive thrive. Don’t overshoot the limits. Thrive thrive thrive. KR: Again. KR and Aud: Leave no one in the hole. Thrive thrive thrive. Don’t overshoot the limit. Thrive thrive thrive. KR: Yes, that is how we take out our pens and raise our voices and take a stand and sing the doughnut into being. Thank you all very much. (Applause) Thank you.
