#090 Becoming the World’s First Doughnut Economy
With Amsterdam Deputy Mayor Marieke van Doorninck
Marieke van Doorninck is the Deputy Mayor of the City of Amsterdam, the first city to formally adopt Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics as their compass for human progress.
Way back at the beginning of this podcast, 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, acting as a compass for human progress this century. And it has inspired the imagination of people everywhere.
Marieke van Doorninck, Deputy Mayor of the City of Amsterdam (supplied).
“Reading the book of Kate Raworth, the Doughnut Economy, was like, there is an alternative. And actually, economics is not a natural science. It’s not like gravity. It’s a social science, it was made by humans, it can be changed by humankind. And for me, it’s so clear, but having grown up in these times when we’re always taught that there is no alternative, it was kind of a revelation even I think, like, we can actually do this. ”
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 conversation was recorded online on Thursday 19 July 2021, with Marieke speaking from her office in the Netherlands.
And I've led into it with a special message of thanks for all your support so far, and a heads up for a couple of new developments with the podcast coming soon.
Get more:
The City of Amsterdam’s ‘doughnut economy’.
Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL).
The article I wrote for The Conversation on all this, just before starting the podcast, that went viral and even attracted the interest of Sydney talk back.
My conversation with Kate Raworth back at the start of the podcast for episode 3.
Kate’s keynote from episode 46 that featured at the top of this episode.
Robert Kennedy’s 1968 speech excerpt sourced from here.
Music:
Faraway Castle, by Rae Howell & Sunwrae.