The results of using the Doughnut Economics model

 These people have done it!

The town of Ladywood, Birmingham, UK not only worked through the model of a doughnut to evaluate their needs both social and environmental...and published their efforts. Here's the link.

Neighbourhood Doughnut Portrait Launch

We're excited to introduce you to the first Neighbourhood Doughnut Portrait, painted by many people together in Ladywood

Posted by CIVIC SQUARE  December, 09, 2022

“The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something we make, and could just as easily make differently.”

—David Graeber

Building on over 3 focused years of taking the ideas of Doughnut Economics off the page with neighbours, researchers, partners and visionaries, and many more previously exploring what the Doughnut could mean in our context, we're so excited to celebrate all those working to move us towards safe and just futures for our neighbourhoods as we launch the first ever Neighbourhood Doughnut Portrait in Ladywood, Birmingham UK.

Following an in person celebration and portrait launch in our neighbourhood Thursday 27th - Saturday 29th October 2022 and a digital portrait launch event on Hopin on Wednesday 7th December 2022, we couldn't be prouder to make our portrait available online here on the DEAL platform first, in contribution to the abundant commons being stewarded here by Doughnut Economics Action Lab.

Introduction

You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.”

—Angela Y. Davis

Today we are seeing how multiple globalised systems are entangled in ways that have cascading impacts on society and the natural world we rely on. This global ‘polycrisis’ affects every aspect of our lives, and is experienced most viscerally as multiple impacts begin to converge on the places we live, play, eat, rest, learn, love, heal and grow. Our homes, streets and neighbourhoods bring together the big picture, our bold goals, expansive dreams, immediate everyday challenges and opportunities, as well as the experience of crisis, mutual aid, and real barriers to overcome, which manifest in a way that we can interact with, share in and feel the effects of as neighbours.

Our neighbourhoods are also where our agency and ability to organise is highest, and are sites that can help to alleviate our grief and sense of powerlessness, making them the foundations of the hopeful, creative, just transition that we know is in our hearts. Movements, stories and organising for new economic possibilities is nurtured, demonstrated, and crafted through everyday actions, and we have the collective energy to rehearse and manifest bold visions for our futures if we can change the goal, create a compass like the one we present in this Portrait to guide us, establish new shared metrics, take up roles stewarding the miracle of our abundant commons, and demonstrate the different transformations that are required in governance, finance, and many other areas to deeply (re)design and build life-affirming realities.

Approaches from the neighbourhood up are, therefore, not only a moral imperative, nor simply a ‘nice to have’ or a way to consult on decisions that have already been made. Our neighbourhoods are a fundamental unit of change that we need to understand, without which we render ourselves unable to meet the challenges of this century. Just as the founding of the NHS brought national and regional infrastructure, but also required crucial democratic access to healthcare at the neighbourhood level through GPs, and as public libraries and social housing movements acted as a means to distribute access to knowledge and safety, such is true for 21st century transition infrastructure to be built at the scale of our streets and neighbourhood in this time of deep transformation. These are the drivers that carry this Portrait forward, and we invite you to carry these words with you as you explore this picture painted by many people together.

Design

“The future can’t be predicted, but it can be envisioned and brought lovingly into being.”

—Donella Meadows

What happens when a neighbourhood starts to tell its own story, from all its different vantage points, through the many lenses we see our lives, our place, its challenges, its opportunities? The chance to paint our own portrait gives us an opportunity to not only see ourselves and celebrate our strengths, but also notice where we fall short, share stories and hopes of how we wish to be together in the future, and reframe what might be possible.

As we find ourselves in increasingly difficult, uncertain, complex times with many crises being felt all around, what power do we have together? When we can tell a new story of who we are, reframe our collective goals, and build out civic power, we can unlock the collaborative, creative, courageous communities that we know we can be. The beautiful thing about a portrait is it doesn’t have to perfect, there doesn’t just have to be just one, it can be created by looking through many lenses and from a range of vantage points. When we make our portraits visible to one another, we can also see what and who is missing, where we like what we see and want to do more, where we don’t and want to change and, when we invite our imagination, we can envision more beautiful futures than we dared to dream of, and bring them, lovingly, into being.

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Both hard and soft evidence is used, thereby avoiding the common trap of giving preference to the quantitative above all else, which is especially dangerous when working in areas of knowledge where reliable measurements do not yet exist or data is overwhelming.”

—Helsinki Design Lab, Recipes for Systemic Change

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The tools by Doughnut Economics Action Lab encouraged us to explore our portrait and, along with hundreds of neighbours and partners over 3 years, we unrolled the Doughnut and surfaced our Community Portrait of Place and Data Portrait of Place. We are incredibly inspired and thankful to the work of Leeds, Amsterdam, Brussels, Cornwall and others who pioneered this work, and motivated and supported us to build upon it. We of course will do the same to others who follow afterwards.

The Doughnut Unrolled set of tools suggests a number of ways to create this portrait, through the four lenses and specific dimensions within those. At this stage we have taken a bespoke approach to each aspect of the portrait, related directly to the context of and what matters most in our work, our location and other interdependencies. We are now in the early days of synthesising the learnings and weaving together the different elements, which we invite you to explore.

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The above is quoted from this link to DEAL Neighbourhood Doughnut Portrait Launch

The following are clipped from their workbook. Of note is their 3 years of implementation.