A Tequio to Imagine Economies in Service of Life: Global Donut Days 2026 in Mexico City

At the fifth edition of Global Donut Days in Mexico, community members, experts and people interested in transforming the economy came together in a public space to imagine different possible futures for Mexico City and, above all, begin building them collectively.

On 24 October 2026, Tricolor Coalition hosted the fifth edition of Global Donut Days in Mexico, bringing together local residents, experts and organisations interested in understanding and transforming the economy in different ways.

Under the theme “A Tequio to Imagine Economies in Service of Life”, this year's gathering connected Doughnut Economics with the perspective of Economías Alternativas México, inviting us to question how we produce, consume and relate to one another, as well as what we understand by wellbeing, abundance, wealth, community and care.

Rather than measuring economic success solely through growth, the gathering posed a question: what if we organised our economic activities around what people and the planet need to thrive? To explore this, we used speculative design and futures thinking as tools to discuss the ethical, social and technological implications of these possible futures.

The event took place at UTOPÍA Coyoacán Elena Poniatowska, a public space whose own history reflects an interesting transformation in how we understand the use of resources and spaces, and their relationship with the community. It was an opportunity not only to talk about an economy in service of life, but also to experience some of the possibilities that emerge when we put this principle into practice.

A place that tells its own story of transformation.

The choice of venue was an essential part of what made this edition meaningful.

The building we now know as UTOPÍA Coyoacán has served different purposes throughout its history. In the 1970s, it operated as a shopping centre that failed to establish itself and was eventually abandoned. During the 1980s, it housed the offices of Banco del Atlántico and, following the economic crisis of the 1990s, it once again stood empty. Later, the local government recovered the property to house administrative offices, a project that also faced challenges in its relationship with the community.

Today, that same building is home to UTOPÍA Elena Poniatowska Amor, which opened in August 2026 in the San Lucas neighbourhood as the first UTOPÍA centre in Coyoacán. UTOPÍAS (Units for Transformation and Organisation for Inclusion and Social Harmony) is a programme that recovers public spaces and places them at the service of local communities, working around their priorities and needs. These centres provide spaces where care, gender equality, health, employment and culture can be addressed collectively. They also offer free cultural, artistic and recreational activities, community markets and services through the Public Care System.

A place historically associated with commercial activities and institutional functions now has a new purpose as a shared space for community life. Its transformation invites us to ask a question that is also at the heart of Doughnut Economics: what happens when we change the purpose of the spaces and resources around us and reclaim them as our own?

For Global Donut Days, this meant much more than having a suitable venue. UTOPÍA offered a tangible example of how we can move away from conventional economic priorities towards other forms of organisation that put collective wellbeing, the restoration of social connections and the care of shared spaces at the centre.

Bringing the Doughnut into everyday life.

The day began outside the main venue with a participatory activity inspired by Step into the Doughnut.

We wanted people to experience the model physically. Using a rope to represent the boundaries of the Doughnut, we set up an open activity for local residents visiting the UTOPÍA community market, where they were waiting their turn to buy affordable food.

People of different ages joined in, including some who had not come specifically to attend the event. This spontaneous encounter offered a simple and accessible way to explore what it means to live within a safe and just space: meeting everyone's essential needs without exceeding the ecological limits that make life possible. There, among the market queues, Doughnut Economics moved beyond a diagram or abstract model and became a shared experience with the community.

From alternative economies to a shared vision of the future.

The activities continued in UTOPÍA's immersive room, a particularly suitable space for bringing participants together around a circular stage.

After welcoming everyone, we thanked Patricia Guerrero, coordinator of UTOPÍA Coyoacán, and Jazmín Laredo, programme coordinator at the General Directorate of Environmental Policy and Culture of Mexico City's Secretariat of the Environment, for their participation and for helping make this gathering possible.

In her remarks, Jazmín highlighted the importance of having open and inclusive public spaces where people can reflect on wellbeing, care and the restoration of social connections.

Eva Valencia, founder and director of Tricolor Coalition, then introduced the purpose of Global Donut Days and reflected on how the initiative has evolved in Mexico. Since its first edition, which began with online sessions, the gathering has gradually become a space for connecting people, disciplines and initiatives interested in exploring different ways to transform our economic systems.

The programme continued with an introduction to Doughnut Economics in the Mexican context, presented by Rodrigo Pontón. This was followed by Jorge Oseguera and Carlos Viesca, members of the Economías Alternativas México, who shared the vision and objectives of this movement and its proposal for moving towards an economy in service of life.

Their invitation was to look beyond conventional ideas of economic success and recognise the many initiatives, experiences and forms of knowledge already exploring different ways of producing, exchanging and thriving in balance with the people and territories we inhabit.

Imagining different possible futures for Mexico City.

One of the central activities of the day was a collaborative workshop exploring possible futures for Mexico City through the lens of alternative economies.

The session began with an introduction by Emilio Sosa, a member of Tricolor Coalition and a specialist in user experience design and futures thinking. Starting from the idea that the future is not something we can simply predict, but something we can imagine and help shape, he invited participants to reflect on how the decisions we make today and the signals we observe around us can lead to very different realities.

The workshop focused on three closely interconnected challenges that are particularly relevant to Mexico City: food systems, waste and water. To explore each topic in greater depth, we were joined by three specialists who shared their knowledge and perspectives:

Piero Barandiarán, coordinator of Huerto Roma Verde, a biosocial laboratory for urban regeneration in the Roma neighbourhood, explored the challenges facing the city's food systems. He spoke about the complexity of supplying food to millions of people and the pressures this creates on production and distribution.

Dr Ángela Caro, a researcher at the Faculty of Sciences at UNAM and a tutor in its Graduate Programme in Sustainability Sciences, whose work focuses on water governance and participatory monitoring systems, shared her perspective on water availability in the city and the socio-ecological consequences of its overexploitation. Learn more about her work.

Jahir Mojica, co-founder and CEO of SUEMA (Sustainability in Energy and Environment), a company that designs technological solutions to make use of waste through circular economy approaches, spoke about the challenges of waste management in one of the world's largest cities. He highlighted the enormous volumes of waste that cannot simply be recycled or returned to productive cycles.

Building on these discussions, participants divided into three teams, each focusing on one of the topics. Their challenge was to imagine a future scenario based on a series of signals of change and, from that possible reality, collaboratively design a product, technology or tool that could respond to its needs and conditions.

Each team presented its results to the rest of the participants. Rather than seeking definitive solutions, the exercise explored how different forms of knowledge, experience and creativity can come together to address complex challenges. It also reinforced a fundamental principle of systems thinking: the challenges facing a city are interconnected, and the solutions we imagine need to recognise and address those relationships. One example discussed was the proposal to create waste collection and composting spaces in schools, combining an educational project with a contribution to the wider community.

Turning reflection into collective action.

The final part of the gathering brought the day's central theme into practice through a series of environmental tequios.

Tequio has its roots in community traditions of collective work in Mexico, particularly among different Indigenous peoples. It is a form of cooperation in which people contribute their time and effort to improve a shared space or address a community need.

At UTOPÍA Elena Poniatowska Amor, this idea became a practical way to give thanks to the place that had welcomed us, through collective care activities shaped around needs identified in advance with the UTOPÍA team. For this final part of the day, participants organised themselves into teams. One focused on restoring the community garden: cleaning the area, planting seedlings and seeds, and repairing and improving the growing tables. Another worked with reclaimed wood to build and repair tables, giving these materials a new purpose while adding furniture to the space.

In this way, regeneration became more than a concept to discuss or a future to imagine. It became a collective practice rooted in care, cooperation, making better use of resources and contributing directly to the community.

Meanwhile, in the Climate Action Room, children took part in a biomimicry workshop with biologist Fernando Cordero, from the project Nautilus Aprende y Juega. Through games and hands-on activities, they discovered how scientific and technological innovations can draw inspiration from the characteristics of plants and animals. It was another way to bring the gathering's conversations closer to younger generations and show how curiosity about the natural world can open up new paths for learning and innovation.

An economy in service of life begins with how we work together.

This fifth edition of Global Donut Days in Mexico brought Doughnut Economics into a real community setting. It connected a global framework for rethinking our economic systems with the realities of Mexico City, creating opportunities to learn, imagine and work collectively.

The choice of UTOPÍA Elena Poniatowska Amor gave the experience a particular meaning. The space itself tells a story about the possibility of changing the purpose of places and resources: moving from uses that failed to fulfil their potential towards a vision centred on community wellbeing and shared care.

The futures workshop allowed us to look beyond immediate problems and explore how different forms of economic organisation could respond to the interconnected challenges of food, water and waste. The environmental tequios, in turn, showed that imagining a different future also means finding concrete ways to build it together.

Perhaps one of the most important lessons of the day was recognising that a city's future is not shaped solely by major institutions, public policies or technological innovations. It is also built through the relationships we nurture, the knowledge we share, the resources we care for and the decisions we are able to make collectively.

Moving towards a safe and just space for humanity requires much more than changing economic indicators. It means rethinking what we value, how we meet our needs and how we organise ourselves to sustain the conditions that make life possible — not only for those of us living today, but also for generations to come.

A different economy does not begin somewhere else. It begins by reclaiming the spaces we share, strengthening our communities and doing the work we are willing to take on together to care for one another.

We would like to thank Piero Barandiarán, Dr Mariana Muñoz and Jahir Mojica for sharing their knowledge; Alejandra Atzín, Jazmín Laredo from SEDEMA and the team at UTOPÍA Elena Poniatowska Amor for opening their doors to us; Doughnut Economics Action Lab for its global support for this event; and Economías Alternativas México for the collective reflections that helped us reimagine our economies and move towards safer and more just spaces.

Finally, we thank everyone who joined us and shared their ideas, knowledge, hands and energy with us throughout the day.

This was the spirit of the fifth edition of Global Donut Days in Mexico: A Tequio to Imagine Economies in Service of Life.