Marieke van Doorninck is Deputy Mayor of the City of Amsterdam, the first city to formally adopt Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics as their compass for human progress. At this podcast's beginning, Kate Raworth talked with me about her best-selling book Doughnut Economics, proposing an economic model fit for the 21st century - one that meets the needs of all within the means of the planet. She calls the doughnut a playfully serious approach to framing that challenge. And it has inspired the imagination of people everywhere.

Pope Francis calls Doughnut Economics “our species’ compass for the journey” to a sustainable future. A chapter of David Attenborough’s latest book is dedicated to it. And certainly, Kate Raworth’s episodes have been among this podcast’s most listened to.

Due to the overwhelming response to her book, she’s created the DEAL (the Doughnut Economics Action Lab). It helps cities, communities, states, provinces, countries and institutions everywhere adopt Doughnut Economics as a reality, scaled and tailored to their circumstances. In the wake of COVID-19, Amsterdam was the first city to formally adopt the Doughnut last year.

In many ways, that seems fitting too. A Time Magazine article earlier this year started with this: ‘In 1602, in a house on a narrow alley, a merchant began selling shares in the nascent Dutch East India Company. In doing so, he paved the way for the creation of the first stock exchange—and the capitalist global economy that has transformed life on earth.”

It then quoted a 30 year old woman coordinating the community movement called the Amsterdam Doughnut Coalition: “Now I think we’re one of the first cities in a while to start questioning this system. Is it actually making us healthy and happy? What do we want? Is it really just economic growth?”’

This is a whole city deciding to do something different. And a government responding.

This chat was recorded online with Marieke in her office on Thursday 19 July 2021.

With a brief message from me on some new podcast developments.

Title slide: Marieke van Doorninck (supplied).

Music:
Faraway Castle, by Rae Howell & Sunwrae.

Find more:
Marieke van Doorninck

The City of Amsterdam’s ‘doughnut economy’

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