Cities & Regions: Let's Get Started

About this guide

This guide is for anyone working within or alongside local or regional government who is inspired by the concepts and tools of Doughnut Economics and wants to better understand how to start putting them into practice in their own place. It collects real-world approaches and examples that can be applied and adapted worldwide and at many scales - whether for a city or town, a village or rural region, a county or state. It is intended as a starting point for those who are new to Doughnut Economics, as well as those who are already familiar and engaging with the concepts. 

Drawing from the principles of Doughnut Economics, from DEAL’s tools and methodologies and from the experiences of cities and regions, this guide brings together our most current understanding of how Doughnut Economics is being put into practice by local and regional governments, along with examples from places already in action. It lays out nine pathways for engaging with Doughnut Economics - from learning and testing, to developing metrics and strategy, to using the Doughnut as a unifying framework for policy-making.

Each pathway sets out a series of potential actions, examples from local and regional governments around the world, as well as key available tools and resources. These pathways are not a step-by-step approach, but rather a catalogue of possibilities - a library of options - allowing each mayor, councillor, head of department and ambitious civil servant to identify the possibilities and opportunities in their own locality. Most places will be exploring more than one pathway at the same time, the most ambitious ones may aim to engage with all of them.

Download the full guide below.
'to view' - is in a double spread format as it's best viewed, and contains links to case studies and tools. 
'to print' - does not have any clickable links.  

The guide is currently only available in English, but we will be translating it into Spanish, Portuguese, German and French in the coming months. 

Learning and evolving this guide 

These nine pathways are in no way a definite and prescriptive list. There may be more, less, or quite different ones in a few years time - we invite all cities and regions to join us on our learning journey to find and share entry points for local adaptation and transformative action. As we all continue to innovate and experiment together, DEAL will continue to update this guide with new learnings, insights and case studies.

If you have any feedback, questions or suggestions about the guide, or if you would like to suggest case studies or tools that should be included in a next version of it - please fill in this 2-question survey.