Doughnut in local governments: a global overview

"Doughnut Economics in Local Government: An Overview of Emerging Practice", a newly published  peer-reviewed article (Oct 2025), co-authored by Leonora Grcheva and Michele Vianello, with the support of the Doughnut Economics Action Lab,  provides a first overview of policy approaches informed by Doughnut Economics (DE) in 50 local governments worldwide that have worked with it in their own processes, strategies, and plans. 

Since the first cities (Amsterdam, Portland and Philadelphia) experimented with Doughnut Economics in 2019, over 50 local and regional governments from all over the world have brought the Doughnut into their own plans, strategies in policies. We at DEAL have supported this emerging community of practice through the Cities & Regions theme, and over the course of four years have met with over 100 local and regional governments that were either already working with Doughnut Economics in some ways, or exploring the possibility. Our Cities & Regions: Let's Get Started guide, aimed to offer a first comprehensive resource mapping the many different ways in which local governments turn DE into practice.

However, to date, there had been no research study providing a comprehensive overview of this global emerging practice, that synthesises what is the state of DE practice in local governments and what are some insights from these early adopters.  This research article aims to fill that gap.

The study used a mixed-methods approach, analysing 30 responses to a survey distributed to those leading the DE work in local governments, as well as 91 policy documents and other grey literature sources.

The full article is available here, and you can see few insights through images below.