Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist

The chapter opens by challenging the “grow now, clean up later” narrative (176), which is based on the Environmental Kuznets Curve. This theory, proposed in the 1990s, suggests pollution first rises with GDP and then falls. In reality, local clean-ups are driven by citizen power, not just income; pollution is often shifted abroad; and the material footprints of high-income countries continue to grow. The problem is a degenerative linear “caterpillar” economy—take, make, use, lose—that breaks life’s cycles. The text calls for a paradigm shift to regenerative design.

The chapter outlines a corporate path toward regeneration, moving from doing nothing to being “generous.” Biomimicry pioneer Janine Benyus urges learning from nature to rejoin the great natural cycles. The circular “butterfly” economy replaces the linear caterpillar, creating a renewable-powered system with two nutrient loops: one for biological materials and one for technical materials. This model is scaled up in “generous cities,” which set ecological performance benchmarks inspired by local ecosystems. Examples include a cradle-to-cradle business park in the Netherlands and community-led land restoration in Ethiopia.

To enable system-wide circularity, the Open Source Circular Economy movement promotes modularity, or creating easy-to-assemble product parts; open standards, which utilize standardized component designs; and open data, which makes data on components publicly available.