 My name is Barry Colfer and I'm the director of research here at the Institute of International and European Affairs in Dublin. I'm really delighted to welcome you to today's meeting the fourth presentation in our environmental resilience lecture series, which the I is thrilled to organize in conjunction with the environmental protection agency the EPA. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the EPA as ever for their sponsorship of this series and for their ongoing support with the Institute on its work. And this has been a really great series thus far and it's great to see you all here in such great numbers. With a lot to be joined today by Professor Kate Rayworth and ecological economist and co founder of donut economics action lab. Thanks to case and team for being available to spare the time to do this. By way of a brief introduction, Kate Rayworth is an ecological economist and as the founder of donut economic actions lab. Kate Rayworth is an internationally bestselling author of donut economics, seven ways to think like a 21st century economist which has been translated into over 20 languages has been widely influential, and it's been cited by diverse audiences ranging from the UN General Assembly, Pope Francis and extinction rebellion. Kate is also a senior associate at Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute, where she teaches in the masters in environmental change and management, those lucky students. Kate is also professor of practice at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. In the past 25 years, Kate's career has taken her from working with micro entrepreneurs in villages in Zanzibar to co authoring the human development report for the UNDP in New York. Just followed by a decade as senior a senior researcher at Oxfam so really diverse and really interesting background. Today Kate will present the donut of social and ecological boundaries and will give something of an overview of the transformations that are required for the donut to take shape. Kate will also focus in part on the need for regenerative and distributive dynamics, particularly in the context of cities, towns and regions, and will highlight some examples of local governments and community organizations around the world that are starting to put these ideas into practice. I will speak to us for about 20 minutes or so and then as ever we'll go to the questions and answers with you our audience. As ever you'll be able to join the discussion using the Q&A function on Zoom which you should be able to see on your screen. Please feel free to send your questions in throughout the session as they occur to you. I will get to as many questions as we can once Kate has finished her presentation. You can find her that today's presentation and Q&A are both on the record. Please feel free to join the discussion on Twitter using the handle at IEEA. We're also live streaming this afternoon's discussion so a very warm welcome to all of you tuning in via YouTube. Finally, before the main event, please allow me to hand over to Dr. Emer Cotter, who is director of the Office of Evidence and Assessment at EPA to offer some opening remarks before Kate's presentation. Thank you for being with us and Emer please the floor as you wish. Thanks very much Barry and thank you for the opportunity to make some brief opening remarks ahead of what would be a really interesting lecture from Kate Ray-Water and indeed to welcome Kate to the IEEA's environmental resilience lecture series that we have been delighted to support in the EPA over the last number of years. One of our roles in the EPA is to be a voice for Ireland's environment and we do that through our leadership, through our advocacy and partnering and working with others. So partnering on this lecture series with the IEEA is a really important aspect of that for us to inform and stimulate the debate and the discussion in Ireland on the environmental challenges. So just by way of opening, I'm going to make a number of opening brief remarks to link the concepts of donut economics to some of the environmental challenges that we're seeing in Ireland at the moment. We see time and again how key environmental indicators in Ireland are tracking economic growth. Our most latest greenhouse gas emissions for 2021 increased by nearly 5% as the economy rebounded following COVID restrictions and started to recover. We saw emissions growing in tandem with that economic activity. When we look at our waste statistics and waste generation, we also see a really tight coupling of economic activity with waste generation from our homes and from our businesses. So if the overall goal of donut economics is to move away from endless GDP growth, to instead look at meeting the needs of all people within the means of the living planners in case we'll talk to us a lot more about this over the course of our lecture. If they are the goals we have, we are facing significant challenges in Ireland when we look at our environmental status. One of the areas that we're very focused on in the moment in the EPA is around fostering and stimulating a circular economy in Ireland. And that's just one of the aspects that I think we can learn a lot from donut economics as we look and evolve and grow work in this space. We've set up a dedicated program in the EPA that's looking at promoting and fostering a circular economy and we'll do that through our evidence, through our engagement and through our regulatory activities. And indeed, in our new strategic action plan that would bring us out to 2026 as an organization, one of our core strategic outcomes is to promote a transition to sustainable production and consumption. So the concepts of donut economics is something that we, and I see we can really learn from, particularly looking at systems thinking around being regenerative. And I'm really looking forward to hearing what Kate has to say today and then bringing those thinking and those thoughts back into our own work in the EPA. And I'm sure the large audience here will stimulate their own thoughts in terms of their own work into the future. So thank you very much for this opportunity and I'll hand over straight away now to Kate. Thank you so much. It's a huge pleasure to join you. Thank you for such a generous introduction. I'm really, really excited about things that are happening in Ireland and in relation to donut economics and how this can be in service of the transition that's clearly wanting and emerging in your country. So, let me share my screen and jump in with the core concepts. Hang on a moment. The core of donut economics. So let me begin with a health warning, right? I don't have to eat donuts to be into diet economics. The doctors would not forgive me if I didn't be clear with that. The best donuts are of course conceptual, because they transform the way we think. So I'm going to introduce you to a conceptual donut, but first, but first let's begin where I began with my economics education and I believe anyone who's had an economics education will have been introduced to these ideas that I was taught and I was deeply frustrated and I think they're far too widely taught now. I'm going to call this 20th century economics, because I think it's profoundly out of date and does not serve this century. In this worldview that we get taught in university or we hear politicians in parliament or we read in the economic pages of the newspaper. The first image that students are ever taught is the supply and demand of the market. It puts the market at the centre of our vision. It makes price the metric of concern. It means that anything that falls outside a price contract is called an externality in economic language. Now that means that the ongoing destruction of the living world shows up as an environmental externality. And for me that's reason enough to leave this thinking behind. There's no way we can call our destruction and breakdown of the living world in which we depend an externality to anything. The selfie of humanity that gets put at the centre of economic thinking is rational economic man. This is the character within the economic models and he shapes us. The more we're told about him, the more we start to mimic him, which is dangerous. Because he's depicted as a man with no dependence. He's got money in his hand. He interacts with the world to the market. He's got ego in his heart, a calculator in his head. He's got nature at his feet. The more the students learn about this character, the more they value self-interest and competition over collaboration and altruism. So who we tell ourselves we are shapes, who we become. We need a far richer understanding of humanity and our capacity to collaborate because we are of course the most social of all animals. And lastly, the goal. What is the goal that's placed at the centre of 20th century economics? It's already been mentioned by EMA. It's growth, endless growth, no matter how rich a nation already is. It's politicians and economists will tell us that the solution to its problems lies in yet more growth endlessly. And there's something ultimately insane about that. I believe these ideas and others have profoundly shaped the mindset that's led us to where we are and it's not a good place. The 21st century we know has begun with repeated crisis of financial meltdown from 2008, which has a long tail in many people's lives from climate and ecological breakdown, which is the frame of our time. Protests crack down as people speak up for the living world. We've seen an extraordinary resistance and actually more police powers brought into being to push back against that rise up. And then COVID lockdown that we've all lived through for the last couple of years. These crises, they are reported separately, but they are deeply interconnected. They show us how connected we are with each other and the rest of the living world. They show us that they hit with extremes of inequality of gender and race of wealth and power between the global north and the global south. But they all arise from systems that are based on endless expansion. If you try to financially expand the financial system, you will create a bubble that bursts on itself. If we endlessly use earth's fossil fuels and minerals, we will induce climate and ecological breakdown. And if we endlessly expand human settlements into areas of wildlife and couple that with global travel, we create perfect conditions for zoonotic disease transfer. So we need a new vision of well being of success of development of thriving that does not depend upon the endless concept of endless expansion. And in service of that new vision, I offer the donut one possible way of imagining that new feature. So think of it as a compass for human prosperity. The goal leave no one in the hole falling short on the essentials of life. That's where people don't have the resources they need to lead a decent life. And the UN and the world's governments have already agreed that no person in the world should be left in that hole. That's a powerful global commitment. Leave no one in the hole below that social foundation. But at the same time as we collectively use earth's resources make sure we don't overshoot that ecological ceiling of planetary boundaries, the life supporting systems that make life work on this planet. That keep her in a stable balance of a stable climate and healthy oceans and fertile soils and abundant biodiversity and recharging water in the lakes and rivers and a protective ozone layer overhead. So the goal leave no one in the hole. Don't overshoot the limits. We've got to thrive in the space between where we meet the needs of all people within the means of the planet. And suddenly the shape of progress has changed. It's not this ever rising line of growth. It's thriving in balance between those boundaries, which looks just like a heartbeat when you do it like this. And I think that reconnects us to our bodies we know in our bodies that health lies in balance this delicately balanced living system that is each one of us. Health lies in balance. Can we take what we deeply understand in our own bodies take that to the planetary body and find health in an economy in the 21st century. When I first drew this diagram over 10 years ago I was amazed by the traction it had by the response that people had to it. It felt empowered permitted to open a new economic conversation. And I looked at the way that many indigenous cultures have for millennia depicted depicted well being thriving flourishing health and I was amazed to see that so often it's this dynamic circle something very profound about the circular shape but with a dynamism of life within it. So can we return and can we learn from those cultures and find our own way back to thriving not being endless growth but thriving being in balance. If that's where we want to get to that place of balance will very very far from there right now all the red in the middle shows you the extent to which people are falling short on life's essentials. Billions of people without the food water health income that every person has a claim to but we are already overshooting multiple planetary boundaries. In fact earth system scientists are in the process of updating the planetary boundary science it's going to get even more extreme we are learning more that we were even more in overshoot of earth systems. This is a confronting image. And let me overlay it with headlines that we we turn the newspapers or scroll through the newsfeed and these headlines come now every day. But they are telling us again and again we are breaking down the life supporting systems of our planetary home. And these rebound upon us of course humans are affected directly by the breakdown of our life support systems. Recently with water and energy crisis, not just in low income countries that always experienced these crises but here in high income countries and food prices cost of living crisis. It's all interconnected and the richest 1% of people in the world own half of the world's wealth. So this is not only a deeply ecologically degraded world it's a phenomenally socially divided world. This is our inheritance this is what we see. And we now know and I really believe that our children's children will tap us on the shoulder. And say what did you do once that you knew once you saw this once you saw this 21st century situation and you understand the double sided nature of this challenge, and that just growth wasn't going to solve that. What did you do once that you knew what did you do in the way you live the way you work and invest and divest and protest and volunteer and how did you change. And we must ask ourselves how do we change and how do we bring this into our lives because let's recognize that last centuries economic theories and government policies and business models and community lifestyles none of them were designed to turn this story around. So we need new theories we need new policies new business models we need new ways of living. If we are going to be the generation that actually starts turning the human story around. I'm showing you the global donut, but most policy and action takes place close to home so let's bring it down to the national level for nations. You've got Malawi on $1,500 per person per year, a lot of social shortfall and poverty, but without overshooting their share of pressure on the planet. China has that double whammy of human shortfall and already ecological overshoot let's jump to the US. On $64,000 years they should have a blue center circle but no they have high levels of inequality that we know of which means that deprivation is experienced in cities across the nation, even in one of the richest countries in the world, but massive ecological overshoot. And then I've put in Denmark, or I could have put Sweden or I could put Norway or the Netherlands or Iceland where people say but surely surely Scandinavia, surely they are living in the donut. No, they're not know, like all high income countries they are overshooting planetary boundaries. There's one country that's closer than any other to living in the donut. It's Costa Rica, right they have closer to meeting people's needs almost within the means of the planet, and this must give everybody hope on around $21,000 per person per year. They are closer than any other nation to living in that space. This, and they haven't actively been targeting this. So this gives us hope. What could it look like if we all actually aim for this now. Here's over 50 nations. And the goal is to be in that donut sweet spot in the top left hand corner where we meet the needs of all people but we do it within the means of the living planet. You want to know where Ireland is right there you are. You're right there now that's not bad. I mean, you know, hello Australia Canada in the US right. That's different. And therefore, maybe you have a responsibility to show the high income world that we can be part of a transformation. Let's recognize that these countries are interconnected right through histories of colonialism through military and corporate power through trading finance rules to resource extraction and current and future impacts of climate change so they're incorporated like spots on this scatterplot they are interconnected in their stories, predominantly power from the global north impacting on those in the global south. So we need transformation within and between these nations. But let's just take a moment and recognize that if there's not a single country in the donut then I can't see any country here that deserves to call itself a developed country, or an advanced nation there's absolutely nothing developed or advanced about overshooting planetary boundaries and undermining life supports of the systems for everybody else. Let's step back and recognize that the history of economic development has been in this direction, heading towards the donut but then straight past it and massively into overshoot that dynamic of 20th century growth has come with extreme degeneration of the living world that's when we see the red overshoot emerging and divisive capturing income and value in the in the hands of a few. We need a completely different approach if we're going to go not straight past the donut but actually towards it. And that's what's exciting what if every nation transforms but on its own path, depending on the starting point what if low income nations were to rise were to meet the needs of all of their people for the first time without overshooting planetary boundaries in the way that every country before them has done. What if middle income countries were to totally shift and reorient so that they actually start to meet people's needs but while coming back within planetary boundaries how would they do that. What kind of economic and infrastructural transition would that be. What if those countries closest to living in the donut were to actually arrive. And I do know that Ireland is quite close to the letter either. What if these countries Costa Rica Mauritius Chile Jordan Mexico Ireland were to arrive and actually show the world that it's possible to meet the needs of all your people while coming back within planetary boundaries that would be extraordinary leadership and inspiration for all. And then the high income nations which surely with all that read on the screen have a huge obligation to massively reduce their overshoot of planetary boundaries by decarbonizing and dematerializing the economies. None of these journeys and pathways have been followed before this is all unprecedented. So this means that every nation needs extraordinary levels of humility and unprecedented ambition. We need to go on a different dynamic path. One that is not degenerative but regenerative one that's not divisive but distributive. So let me say a little bit about what I mean by each of those. We've inherited linear degenerative economic systems industrial processes that just seem normal as we grow up surrounded by them but they take us materials make it into stuff we want. Use it for a while often just once and then we throw it away. And that's what's running down the life support systems of this planet. We have to bend those linear arrows into circular cyclical arrows where resources aren't used up they used again and again far more carefully creatively and slowly so that we learn to work with and within the cycles of the living world so that we restore nature's generosity and then learn to be part of her cyclical genius which makes life work. What could that look like. And we're talking not just going from degenerative to sustainable do no harm zero deforestation zero pollution zero carbon. Nature doesn't do zero nature's generous she sequesters carbon she cleans the water she cleanses the air she houses biodiversity. That's the cycle of life so can we go past just doing no harm 100% less bad to actually regenerating and doing good and contributing and enabling nature cycles again. That's a transformative leap of design and nature's crying out for it look at the difference it feels to look at that degraded landscape and that restoring landscape it just take it in breath. Life is life still has the possibility to return she is still generous to us. And then in terms of technical materials things that don't belong in biological systems. Human plastics and metals and minerals that we have created and transformed no longer dumped in the neighborhoods of the world's poorest people, but no longer just 100% recyclable. What if we can just avoid that recyclable step and actually go upstream repair it replace just the part that's broken refurbish it reuse it share it. And that's where the circular economy and modular design is key. It's not about just cycling materials more and more crazily around a loop it's preventing that looping in the first place from a deep redesign of how things are built but how they're owned and how they used. So from degenerative to regenerative but also we have inherited systems whether through privilege or law regulation inheritance that are divisive by design they capture opportunity and value in the hands of a few we see it a rise of a 1% supercharged by COVID nationally and globally. How can that divisive system become far more distributive so that value and opportunity that's created is shared far more equitably with everybody who co creates it. And that turns out to be the whole of society. Again, we're not just going from divisive to inclusive and I decided to say here like you know traffic jam traffic jam of cars. Inclusive one is that the bus gets to sit in the traffic jam of cars. We've all been on that bus. I don't want to be included in that traffic jam. I don't want to be part of that old system. We want to go to distributive where we redesign the system so that in this case a bus is affordable is the cheapest fastest cleanest most sensible way to get into the city center. We want to redesign the system. So we're not just including excluded people but actually distributing opportunity to those who need it. And we can take that into the world of work, not just going from paying poverty wages to paying people a living wage you can just about get by in this system. What if we actually transform the ownership of enterprise so that those employed get a living wage and a profit share of the profit they contribute to creating redesigning the system so that they're far more distributive. So from degenerative to regenerative divisive to distributive cities around the world, ever since we launched the donut economics action lab have said, what would it mean to do that here could we could we bring those principles and these tools to where we are and I'm going to now just show you the tool that we create and invite you to imagine from wherever you are whether it's a city or a town or a village or a neighborhood or a district, what would it mean to do this where you are. So how can our city our place help bring humanity into the donut with first we need to unroll it, we need to make some space between that social foundation and ecological ceiling. So we can go inside, and we open it up, and we ask this question wherever you are how can your place become a home to thriving people in an ecologically thriving place, while respecting the well being of all people and the health of the whole planet. That's a very complex question I know so let's break it down into what we call the full lenses and we've got on the one side the local aspirations, and on the other side global responsibilities both social and ecological. So let's start with the local people of the place, how can all the people of our city or place thrive, what it means for everybody here to have good food, great schools for their kids to go to good health care, great mobility, good housing, good well jobs so that we can all live well here and that's a local conversation of what thriving looks like here and that conversation of course needs to happen in every community that decides to enter into it. It's set by the values the culture the traditions of a place. That's what a good life here is. And then what would it mean to add to that. How can our place be as generous as the wild land next door so if the bar mimicry think a Janine Benius were with us right now she'd say take me to the wild land next door wherever you are. Take me to that place where nature is in her healthiest natural habitat not completely wild because humans have changed that, but healthy as possible nature near you. And what is nature doing there in every location on earth nature has a genius of sequestering carbon of storing groundwater after storm of cooling the air from the tree tops to the forest floor of housing biodiversity, cleaning this cleaning the air so we can breathe building soil. Those ecological performance standards from your nearby wildland. Literally you took those standards and said, can our town or our city or our village be as generous as that can we sequester carbon instead of releasing it. Can we harvest energy through solar panels or growing food, instead of having it bouncing off buildings and creating an urban heat island effect. Can we cool the air from the tree tops to the forest floor in our city on a hot day. And I love the ambition, the wild ambition of this but it's wild and utterly natural. How can we create settlements that actually belong as part of the ecosystems in which they're located. Now these local aspirations thriving people and thriving place. This is why people think of Denmark and Sweden and Norway. Surely it's thriving. Yeah, they may be doing really well on these two lenses. But that's just half the story, because we know that every city or place is connected into global supply chains and depends upon people and planet worldwide to live well so how are we affecting or respecting them. So now we need to go to our global responsibilities. How can the way we live here respect the health of the whole planet. This takes us to that overshoot of planetary boundaries the red that we see. How can we decarbonize cut our impact on climate change. How can we dematerialize the materials and the food and the clothing and the consumer goods and the electronics we buy. How can we stop having such an intensive material through flow and actually circulate many more of them round. So we're not putting all that pressure on the planet. And still thinking of the supply chains that that make our lives work in cities and places every day. Who stitched the clothes we wear who picked and packed the food we eat for lunch, who assembled our phones and computers. What are the labor rights in those global supply chains are they paid well. Who is affected by the way we live here the impacts of climate change that we know are hitting. And if people come in search of refuge. How are they welcomed. The official policy and the community culture. What else can places do to respect and connect and show solidarity whether it's through university scholarships or arts or sports. How can we show solidarity with those worldwide. So these are the four lenses and I know there's a lot going on. But you know what happens when you get city councillors and community members sitting around it. People often show up with a real invested interest in one particular aspect. You can hear about community. I'm here about climate change. I'm hearing about biodiversity in our local town. I'm here about fair trade and people's rights worldwide, and they each find that they can be seen because it's visible. And when you're seen, it's easier to not only hold what you care about but to hear others and to connect and listen and see the deep interconnections between all of these issues and how can we transform the way we live in our cities in ways that will actually have multiple benefits across these lenses. We've done this work with many places that have approached us only ever with places that have approached us and says you know this looks like a great tool for the transformation we want to bring about here with city governments and with community organizations and I'm just going to share with you. A few of those that are popping up around the world. So Barcelona have decided to create a city portrait the city council are using it and as you can see they've got the donor unrolled there and they're gathering what they think is the relevant data to tell their story so it's not an imposed data set they say what do we think given the data we have available, given what we aspire to hear our values and our goals. What are we going to use to measure how we are performing within those four lenses. And they're involving community members so making it a community conversation gathering people's views about what's already going well what's really not going well how we can improve where we can learn from. In Cornwall in the UK. The council decided to create their own adapted version of the donut and use it as a decision making wheel, so that when a new project comes along like the saints trail which is a bike trail. Will this improve things will have a negative impact how could we redesign it so that improve things and then on the right hand side you can see in lots of different colors. It's their assessment of how they're doing over time. And what I love about the wheel that's on the far right here with the red and the yellow and green and blue. Where they think they're getting better improving on waste and reducing carbon emissions and air pollution where things are still getting worse like on ocean health and where things have stayed the same. That is so much a richer read out than anybody just telling you what happened to Cornwall's GDP over the last five years. This tells us about the real human and ecological metrics of the place and people's ambition to bring about change. So this alone is a reason to move away from thinking that we can measure development through GDP one number that tells us nothing of what's actually going on to much richer dashboard that shows life in human and natural metrics. In Bhutan the city region of Timpu have decided they want to use the doughnut together with their concept of gross national happiness there's a lot of interconnection between the two. So we've been working with them online running zoom conferences for 100 Bhutanese government officials introducing them to the concepts of regenerative and distributive design and I say introducing but of course Bhutan is a country that has deep traditions of regenerative and distributive practice. They're connecting with their very deep cultural traditions these ideas and how can they hold those cultural traditions, even as many more modern influences come into the city and the region. In Amsterdam, not only is the city government included the doughnut is a core concept in its circularity strategy but civic society have picked the concept up and said, so much of what we're already doing here actually resonates with getting into the doughnut so we want to use it as a concept the definition created a website showing all the projects that are already going on and it's really important to celebrate everything that's already in motion to show that we are already in motion towards this as well as recognizing the challenges that we need to turn around. And we celebrated last year doughnut pioneers organizations that were pioneering in tackling both social and ecological issues at the same time within the city whether it's a canteen or a new housing development or textiles company or furniture making company. Once you land in a city just a couple of trains stops away from where I am in Birmingham an amazing organization called Civic Square, who are bringing this down to the community level street by street, talking to people in one neighborhood. What would it mean to do a street level retrofit here, what it means for everybody to feel they could be part of the economic conversation, and you can see just from the playfulness and the engaging us that this is inviting and not intimidating right economics we know intimidates a lot of people but we'll call it doughnut economics and everyone knows there's something fun going on and these guys have really made it irresistible to get involved if that is your community level scale I really invite you to look at what they're doing it's all on deals platform. Now, is any of this happening where you are of course it is. Let me show you a few things that have been happening. The Irish Museum of modern art has had the earth rising festival and there was a wonderful workshop one of my colleagues held their working as you can see together with people looking at the four lenses on the ground. So, starting to plot out literally physically in the space the four lenses the donut. What does this mean where people people assemble where they were living what were the values and the issues they wanted to bring there. And then there's the diet, the Dublin discussion group having donuts plus chat regular meetings as another one coming up. Again, it's going to be on our platform donut economics.org if you want to join in there. The Irish donut economics network was really the one of the very first networks to form around donate economics they're popping up all over the world. And they've been holding monthly meetings with inviting people from across Ireland. Next one's 23rd of February, it's going to be on deals platform again if you're interested, just showing up for copper what's coming to you. How what do we want to do who's interested in these ideas. And then the West Cork donut economy network have been facilitating donut, donut workshops and I've got more coming up in May to coming up in May and then the West Cork feel good festival has workshops coming up in six towns and villages. So I'm showing you all this so that if you go on our platform and have a look you will see these events are about to be posted. You can get involved. If you want to happen where you are, you can decide how you want to be involved. A lot of community initiative. And last one I'm going to show is that Dublin City Council last September, voted to implement the policies of donut economics in the local economic and community plan. They have embedded donut economics in the social ecological statement, and are now about to launch a public consultation engagement and are exploring ideas around creating a city portrait. So this makes me really want to come and visit Dublin, because there's such amazing energy bubbling up, not only Dublin, West Cork and all sorts of places and around Ireland and I hear the other things bubbling up in other places that I won't name until they name themselves but I know things are brewing. So let me pull right back. I'm with 20th century economics and the only tragedy here is that this is still far too often taught in universities around the world. And it's time to move on because these ideas don't serve us and the students today are actually, they began as climate strikers, many of the students I teach currently have been striking as teenagers, since they were 15 16 years old, and now they're in university and they want an education fit for their awareness of what's happening. And it's fit and powers them to be the policymakers the business leaders the community organizers, journalists the lawyers the doctors, who take us through the 21st century with a deeply ecologically grounded mindset. It must come through in an economics education and a design education, and all forms of education. So let's start ourselves with 21st century concepts that put at the center of our vision a goal, which is to meet the needs of all within the means of the living planet if the donut does it for you fantastic. If another framework does it for you fantastic. This is a network and ecosystem of ideas moving together. Let's recognize we are the most social of all mammals, and it's our pro sociality our reciprocity that enables us to redesign our economy into one where we share and connect. We need to become regenerative and distributed by design. And I've shown you just a couple of the tools that we've created the cities like Barcelona that's putting into practice, and the communities like this beautiful workshop that happened in Dublin, beginning to experiment with what does this mean like in our community in our place. And at donut economics action and we were turning the principles and the ideas from the book into data and indicators and metrics for those for whom that's a tool, turning into tools for cities and places working with companies working with community organizations and working with teachers and students in schools, because these are the communities that have come to us and so these are the communities we're responding to. How can we turn these ideas into irresistible tools and practice with you. Let's learn together. There's nothing more powerful than peer to peer inspiration when someone like yourself says well we're doing this we're beginning with we just starting that's the only way to begin. It creates massive ripples of inspiration so I can't wait to see what's bubbling up in Ireland and the way it will create ripples across your nation. And we finished by saying we began down economics action lab because crazy people started doing playful things with the donut. And so we formed it as a platform inviting anybody you're all welcome to either join as a member. We've got over 10,000 members now, or just to browse and have a look at the tools, but if you want to use the tools please do join and share back what you learned that's the reciprocity we asked for the tools that I've shared today are the donor unrolled tools, which you could have a look at and explore and see if that makes sense for your place kick off a conversation or join one that's happening. I'll stop there and I really look forward to conversation. Thank you. We are. That was incredible. And thank you very much. I am going to have to try and gather my thoughts a little bit. I'm still hooked on crazy people started doing playful. I don't think any of us spend enough time doing playful things with donuts. And there's no shortage of questions I'm actually I'm just going to go I have some myself. But there was one that just came in from a, if I can find it, regarding what you're just talking about the resources. I have a question from porig Maccaboy who just asked, are there resources for academics working with students to introduce assessment criteria related to sustainable between parenthesis engineering learning. I think the answer is probably yes that resources are available because you just mentioned what where would you direct pouring to if he wants to find further resources. So we do work with academia because we're thrilled that teachers in schools and in universities are using these concepts and some masters courses have said we've used don't economics as a course textbook because it just gives students that overview. And there's over 100 academic articles that have been written using the concept of the donor actively within the paper and around 20 students have used it in their dissertations and master's thesis. I haven't created those exact assessment tools that you've mentioned but hey, maybe you want to create them and work with students. So the tools are out there. How would you adapt that if we just ask if you start to create something share it back, and bring it to that you could you could create an event on our platform and say does anybody want to help start co creating this. And then we could turn that into a new tool that's how we're working by putting these ideas together and working in the Commons. That sounds like an invitation pouring. But can I just add it's on if you go to donut economics.org, and you click on themes there's a theme research and academia and that's where you'll find all the academic resources I just mentioned. Fantastic. I'm going to give people a chance there's a couple of questions coming in but I'm going to ask a question Kate if I may was people gather their own thoughts. So you identified yourself as an economist from the start and the kind of the discussion around how economics is taught. I'm a political scientist and have similar questions about how politics is taught. And I'm just thinking over the course of your presentation, you spoke about towns and cities and regions and communities and indeed the global level, which are like they're all the most exciting levels of politics to look at anyway but one of the many times that that the state occurred was was in your scatter plot. And like the status still are go to unit of analysis when thinking about politics but I'm left with the impression from your presentation that at least when it comes to these challenges is the is the role of the state somewhat more limited. When compared to the community level or the international level where does the state fit in do you think. I think the role of the state is huge. The reason I started and focused on all the examples I showed is because that's where the energy this has come from for us so when we opened on economics action lab we had a really strong principle we go where the energy is. We've never once tried to convince or lobby or persuade anybody to use any of these tools so everything I showed you was because people in places said this looks useful for us. And the first people who showed up were either community organizations or cities and counselors and mayors. So that's where we've been working and because of the power of peer to peer inspiration. When Amsterdam launched their engagement with it in April 2020 that kicked off Copenhagen and Brussels and Barcelona and Glasgow and Nanaimo and so on. So cities have inspired each other. There is stuff going on at the national level. We are getting approached more and more now actually by individual nations often political parties or civil servants so I've done a lot of talks for civil servants working within environmental departments or economic affairs. A lot a lot of the international level as well. I will bring that when when they go official online but that but we've had really good. We've had really good engagement the concepts across political parties across the political spectrum indeed I know the donor economics has been mentioned in Parliament in Ireland. So it's gauge and I think I think national level politicians need to see critical mass building right and they see it when you see it and it's a European Commission for example about to hold a post growth conference in May next year. There's a lot of engagement with donor economics there. And I think it's because they're seeing lots of pretty big cities in Europe are engaging with us so it bubbles up and I think often that's what national politics does it waits until it sees critical mass and legitimacy of an idea bubbling up before it's a safe space to stand and actually just start advocating for that. So we're finding more and more calls are coming through from national governments, whether it's the current government opposition parties or the civil servants saying we need new ideas. What's going on how can we lift up from what's happening at the local level and bring international politics. That's brilliant. I've won one more related question before turning to to our enthusiastic audience. I'm sure the people are thinking about Costa Rica. I've never been there, but I know a little bit about it it's a fascinating place. Can you say anything about the choices that were made there or maybe is it the interests that there are there. That somehow makes them a relative success. Yeah, so I've never been there either but what so some people say oh Costa Rica isn't it just because they don't have an army because they've got you know right to state right. So that's a kind of geopolitics explanation if you want. I think there's also national decision policy choices. They have invested more in health and education public health and education for which we you know we've known for decades is one of the most important ways of investing in your nation is to invest in the fundamental wealth of the health and education of every human being. That's our fundamental health so they've invested in that and they had like many places. The steady decline of the forest right deep ongoing deforestation and in 1987 they stopped the deforestation if you look at a graph of Costa Rica's deforestation. It goes down down down loss of forest and then it just suddenly does this uptick. And it starts coming back when I was talking to some officials from Costa Rica last year. They said we didn't actually when we stopped that we didn't realize the incredible benefits that this was going to give which would we'd have this incredible tourism of people coming to visit the nature that was restoring the regenerative nature now when people think of Costa Rica we think of an ecosystem and a natural wealth. And so how can other countries recognize that people are drawn and attracted by that ecological wealth but also not just depending on tourism of course and we can't have everybody flying across the world or something it needs to be embedding a nature based economy within the natural wealth so real innovation in recognizing the wealth of biodiversity. I'm sitting in the UK this huge ecological biodiversity depletion here. We need to see a resurgence of that connect that with not only with farming but with recreation and with the way we build our cities and towns and spaces so tackling it from both sides proactive protection and restoration of ecology. You're making me think as well Kate it's the it's the European year of skills and beyond tourism there must be some wonderful opportunities in the donor economy for people to have really cool and interesting jobs as well. I don't know if you've anything to say about that is there is there anything to be said for the jobs that don't exist yet that that the donor economy will yield. Yes and let me speak to regenerative design so it brings it turns that linear loop back into a regenerative ecosystem and the use and even just when I was saying it right reuse replace refurbish remake. Who's going to do that these are jobs. These are creative skilled jobs with pride about caring more about the things we make and remake and they're also really creative. People love having coffee in a cafe that used to be a railway tunnel for example right why do we love that we love the reinvention of spaces we love thinking what things have been and what they can be and what they can become. And we can keep having that relationship with the reinvention of materials and Copenhagen they're building beautiful buildings that have huge chunks in them you can see have just been imported bricks brick walls from somewhere else like like a mosaic made of old building. So there's a lot of creativity and this will bring jobs back to localities I think it'll make jobs in localities worldwide so it's not only regenerative it's distributive. Yeah, one of the really nice things you have in Ireland lately I know you're describing it in Cornwall as well we're on from in the southeast the old railway line it's a horror show that it was taken away but it's been repurposed for a lovely greenway for people to kind of exercise and cycle on and create a lot of economic opportunities. And I'm going to move to a question from the audience but I want to preface it with something because it's related it's I'd assume I thought myself. When we were looking at how perilously out of balance that really arresting image you had, how the life support systems are really breaking down it's almost intimidating. It is intimidating. The wide range of things from us and identification and climate change and land conversion. And like given the dynamics of the whole system they all kind of obviously interact and support or take from one another. And related to this dear Darlane asked a question and I think it was the kind of, I was having the same impulse a moment ago, Kate. Thank you for being here dear Darlane Kate asks, given the climate emergency. Where should we focus our energy on like all the parts of the donut. Is there any that is more equal than others or any that kind of, you know, we can tend to more easily if this policy solutions to address over any of the others could you comment. So just to bring that intimidating arresting image back. So there is a temptation to say climate emergency and therefore we must focus all our attention on cutting carbon emissions. One of the reasons the planetary boundary scientists drew this planetary boundaries back in 2009 was to make sure that the world was reminded of only about only one very, very critical life support system of earth. Right. It's like if I had indigestion, and my doctor cared only about my digestive system and cared nothing about my, my respiratory system or my nervous system and was a I don't want that doctor. I want a doctor who understands that every system is part of a whole. So they created this to say hey there are other key systems under pressure. They're very hard and probably overwhelming to think of all nine so as many people will know that the current focus is on climate and ecological breakdown and all the processes that lead to massive biodiversity loss and the breakdown of the integrity of ecosystems, which is impacted by farming by industry by settlements by so many other things. I would say it's in these two areas, particularly that they know that profoundly interconnected with all others climate change and biodiversity loss. And that's why we hear climate and ecological breakdown has become very important. What's the, what's the one change. I'm not a, I'm not a, I'm not focused on recommending specific policies and I think they really matter in different places as you can hear from where I began to me the one big changes here. It's the mindset. It's the mindset that moves away from thinking that success is endless growth to realize in this thriving imbalance and it's the health of this planet, and therefore it's changing the dynamics and in everything we do, looking not for linear degrading systems throw away there is no way, but regenerative design and yes that's huge. But how do we bring that into the way we turn from car based travel to bike and foot and buses. That's the way we rethink and redesign what we eat and how we travel and how we invest and divest. How do we bring that into all of the policies into the housing policy. So, bringing this new mindset of regenerative and distributive design to me that's the biggest change I seek to make. There are many other specific policies that are needed but I'm focusing my attention there because I think when we make that change. A lot of it becomes common sense, and it's hard to see it any other way. I'm sure at least in part starts with with conversations like this that you're having with 150 new friends. And I'm going to turn to a question from from Kilian Stokes. And Kilian says amazing thanks to the talk. Kilian has been applying your donor principles with Moïe Coffee Ireland from farmer and forest to mug. So, so there's a plug. Kilian would be very interested to hear your thoughts on donor economics and the investment community talking about pensions and ESG or donor economics and startup movements or entrepreneurs, quite a lot there but I would be keen, especially on the investment piece, if you have anything to say. Right, we do a lot of work with businesses. And every time a company comes to us and says we want to do business in the doughnut and they might say oh here's our product I'm just holding up some round of hand cream is like here's our product is sustainable and the plastic is by a grade one. We say look, that sounds great. We don't want to talk about your product. We want to talk about the design of your company. Five things. Here it is. What is your purpose. Why does your company even exist in the world. What are your networks how do you relate to your customers your suppliers your, your employees, your supply chain workers how do you relate to the rest of your industry are you in an extractive relationship or actually you living out your purpose and your values through those relationships. How are you governed. Who has voice and decision making who's in the room when decisions are taken what are the metrics of success and what are the incentives for middle management are they aligned with that or, or actually counter to that. What are you owned. How is this company owns it owned by shareholders by a founding family by a single entrepreneur by employees by a cooperative visit owned by its workers, because how it's owned will profoundly shape what sits deepest is most powerful, how it's and where that finance is coming from. And therefore what it's expecting and demanding is if it's in a major shareholder own company. Well, it's owned by shareholders who put their finance in with expectation of returns. And so the purpose is to maximize returns for those shareholders and everything is geared towards that, even if the website has a different strap line. Everything is geared around the quarterly report to show we're generating high dividends for shareholders. There are many other designs that enable ownership, whether it's of the employees of the workers that actually puts finance in service to that purpose. So we can redesign companies now if if killing is talking about more your coffee which I believe also is in the Netherlands. The design know about my coffee is that they wanted to make sure that coffee, the value of coffee is not just captured in the importing country and you know send us your beans and we'll do everything else and all the values here, but actually installing roasteries in Ethiopia and other countries of production so that the value is captured that that to me is distributive design, because it's making sure that people throughout the supply chain those who've done the work capture more of the value. There's a couple of companies that actually has a purpose and that design and drives the design of the company. So I invite every company anybody interested in the company to be a detective about that company. How is it designed because that will ultimately determine whether or not it can become regenerative and distributive by design, or whether because of its current design and finance and ownership, it's stuck, and it's going to be degenerative and divisive. And that's a tricky moment for companies when we talk with people in very big companies they realize. And it actually reports are really basically getting in the way of us from, from transforming ourselves and it's going to go beyond just me as you reporting that that's a, yeah, in the direction of but it's, as I'm sure anyone asking the question knows it's nothing like on the scale of the transformation needed. I have a question, Kate and it goes back to one of the first things you said in our discussions today. No, Cal Harry and all says, can the appropriate treatment of externalities be part of the solution. The overshooting of planetary boundaries can be understood as arising from the decisions of consumers producers and governments making decisions, while not taking account of all the external consequences of their decisions. Yes, I know there's many environmental economists who with great intention are seeking to bring about a thriving world by internalizing the externalities which is where I began talking about right the supply and demand and anything left outside the market contract is by definition called an externality. I personally feel that that framing is throwing us off and I'm going to playfully push back and say, you know, if aliens wanted to destroy life on earth. They don't even need to arrive if they don't need to send spaceships or green lasers or anything. If they just persuade us to talk about the damage and destruction we do to our planetary home as an environmental economy and call it just in a macro economy call it just another form of capital not the living world's another natural capital. I mean that is the most powerful way to marginalize the foundations of life in our economic mindset. I can see logical ways in which one can seek to make visible environmental externalities but I don't think they're external, they're foundational, so they're not external their effects. And instead of trying to price them back into a concern we should put them at the center of regulation, stop killing rivers by pouring pollution to them. We need to put ecological sense at the center of our understanding and of our regulations. The city of Amsterdam let me return their moment. By 2030 there will be no fossil fuel vehicles in the city. And from 2025 no fossil fuel boats in the canals. So if you want to be in the work the world of mobility in the city of Amsterdam, you already know that by 2030 you got to get well out of fossil fuels that kind of clear commitment, 10 years in advance, sends a signal to industry today. They don't wait until 2030. They're already redesigning they're already and you can see when you go to Amsterdam every time I go there there's just more electric innovation scooters more public transit more innovative ways of getting around. So bringing forward that future with a clear regulation and I you know why leave it and say you can keep buying fossil fuel cars until 2035. Why are we dragging our feet with fossil fuels for so long give a long loud legal message to industry that actually makes transformation start happening today. So through that clarity of regulation, I would say rather than trying to price everything in as an externality I think the aliens will get us first. I think we have time Kate probably for two more questions if I'm quick, but I'll have to be quick to then I hear what you're saying I'll be quick. Thanks I know it's mainly me from one question from Dara Lawler who is a senior researcher here at the Institute Harry Dara Dara commends your presentation and asks how much complementarity is there in the ways that our economic indicators, for example, moving from GDP to measure economic growth and donor economics can interact. I suppose how much can they complement each other rather than replace one another I think is our question. If the if the economic industries are moving beyond GDP. I mean, I think so first of all when you look at the donor, the indicators are natural and social metrics right income only shows up once and it shows up here around, ensuring that everybody has a decent given, but all these other metrics are either social metrics measured in human life terms or ecological metrics. Now of course we need economic metrics. We need to also be able to measure is inflation happening or we will want to know what our interest rates we will actually want to know what's the scale of monetary activity going through the economy. GDP tells you what's the financial value of all the goods and services that were bought and sold here in a year. And that's what it tells you it doesn't tell you whether they were cleaning up after pollution or or an investment in a new health centre and and you know early year schooling. So we want to know these things and I think it's a really interesting task to then say what kind of economic metrics will be in service of this world and I'm very much focusing on these metrics first because I think we have to land this and then invite the economic conversations say what kind of economics is in service of this what kind of financial system is in service of this. If we if we start the other way around we end up where I found the first 20 years of my career, begging at the door of finance begging at the door of economics, could you please recognize social value could you please recognize environmental value and then you end up calling, you know, trying to trying to price it ecosystem service prices or social capital prices. I want to flip that conversation. I want to I want it to start with the integrity of life on earth with human and ecological thriving. Invite economics to be in service of that. So yes, I think there is a really important conversation to be had. I'm going to loop to quick questions together the first is from. And Joan Campbell and Joan says I'm not aware of any Irish University that even talks about degrowth where can our children go to learn. And then a question from Kirsten, look, and I think it's a nice question which to end thanks so much for the inspiring talk. One application of the donut economic framework that you've seen has had a big impact and can be leveraged as a starting point or driver for action. Jones question, I would love to know where where these ideas of post growth economics and thriving economics are being taught. And I know that students around the world are just frustrated that it's not in the curriculum that they've signed up for and paid lots of university feasible. There is available, not necessarily in institutions, you can find a lot online there's a lot of online talks and learnings and with lectures that are evolving and I think we will see this coming through. If you really wanted that I would say a master's degree in ecological economics is probably the most likely place that you'll find this kind of thinking being taught. And then Kirsten's point I'm, can I show one big place where it's had big into I'm going to I'm going to resist that say no I can't yet, because this is really new. And I don't want to put any one of the places that's in action under huge pressure say they've transformed because of course you could go then say wonder they haven't. They're trying right and let me and it's a good place to end. This is an urgent journey, and yet transformation takes time. Every city that we're working with is embedded in a region in a nation in a probably in a nation of region of nations that is part of the old system. We're trying to bring about transformation in in a much wider system that is pushing back against them. This is hard work, and you've got to stick with it and you've got to have the guts and the courage to hold that vision. And what we're seeing is that the network of cities popping up, whether they're in one nation or across them, the solidarity that comes between that the reassurance and the reaffirmation is very very strong between them. So we need those to come up. And of course there are examples within them of communities that are using the donor as a principle. Sometimes saying we're already doing it but this gives a framework to explain what we're doing. Nobody understood what we were doing before, and I can explain it this way. So I'm going to hold off by claiming great proof of some big impact that's coming, but until that comes transformative journey ahead. Yeah, look, looking forward to have you in Dublin for act two and we can discuss it. I'll be there real quick one because I think you love this Olivia Freeman has confirmed that NT Dublin is doing this work Fabiola Schneider at DCU another one of the city's university says as a lecture and DCU I can confirm that I mentioned donor economics as part of my finance master's module so there you are. There you go that's fantastic. And Kate has been an absolute pleasure I've learned an enormous amount and that's our mission at the Institute here to try and bring new ideas and understanding to people. So I feel really nourished and motivated to learn more about your important work so thank you so much for taking the time and indeed thank you for your for your important work. Thank you very well for those for those in attendance. So, sorry Kate I'm just going to say that this fits really nicely into the whole series we've done with EPA and I encourage is. If you haven't had a chance we had Professor Emily Schuckberg from from Cambridge, Cambridge zero who spoke in January. There's really nice overlaps between the discussions around externalities and other things it's all on YouTube I encourage you to find it. So just finally and then I'll hand over to Kate in case you'd like to say a final word. Thanks very much to the EPA for sponsoring thanks to Kenan O'Sullivan for for organizing one of our researchers here. But I should say next Friday we're absolutely delighted the next episode in the series. We're going to host Ian Gulland from Zero Waste Scotland. That's at 1pm on Friday the 24th of February chair by Professor Owen loose. I think it's going to be every bit as enjoyable as this meeting was. So I encourage you all to attend. And Kate the final word to you if you wish. Just thank you for this opportunity and thanks to everybody in Ireland whether in the city council or in local communities around the country who are just saying, what would it look like to make make this happen here because that is how we collectively make change happen. So thank you. Thank you Kate. Look forward to speaking again. Bye everyone.