Key Concepts and Themes: Sustainable Development Goals, Doughnut Economics, Community Engagement, Open Schooling.
The Communities: Let’s Get Started! resource is developed by the Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL), turning the ideas of Doughnut Economics into action.
The goal of the Doughnut is to meet the needs of all people within the means of the living planet, but what does this mean for the neighbourhoods, cities, districts or nations where we live?
Let’s Get Started is a collection of tools & stories to apply the ideas of Doughnut Economics to your community, whether at the household, street or neighbourhood scale or connecting as networks for systemic change at the city, region or national scale. The tool contains over 25 tools and 20 stories – with contributions from people, groups, networks and organisations from around the world – to help you get started with your community in your own unique context. Embedded resources can be used individually or in clusters depending on your need and level of experience.
This adapted resource will provide you with an introduction to Doughnut Economics, how the ideas behind it can be implemented in your community, tools and frameworks to gather data and develop a portrait of your community. The resource also provides links to real-world examples of community Doughnut portraits.
More information and additional resources are also available on the DEAL website using the link below:
This resource has been derived from Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL) and doughnuteconomics.org under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence.
Communities: Let’s Get Started! (PDF):
How to use this Best Practice
This collection of resources and training materials supports community engagement around the concept of Doughnut Economics to develop ways in which communities can become more sustainable in a systematic and observable way. The resources are arranged by categories for facilitators to choose from to best suit guiding participants from novice to expert levels in community and action-based Doughnut Economics.
Learning Outcomes
Learning Outcome A: Training resource under the “What is Doughnut Economics?” explore the need for alternative economics models with active learning strategies throughout the workshop-based exercises.
Learning Outcome B: The Doughnut Economics model is a tool that can be used to systematically approach the sustainability challenges with an evidence-based approach. Within the training material, several workshop-based activities are described and resourced to facilitate participant exploration and deeper understanding of key concepts.
Learning Outcome C: While not explicitly referring to national curricula or educational policy, the offering does facilitate reflection on current practices and relationships to help develop a workable strategy to build a community driven by sustainable goals whilst meeting social needs.
Learning Outcome D: The plethora of training materials and resources contained in the proposed tool are driven by the goal of community building through engagement and cooperation. The tools and frameworks provided in Section 4 are designed to support community collaboration in creating sustainable environments and new understanding.
Learning Outcome E: The Doughnut model is designed to represent measurable component elements of a sustainable economy, whether the scale of economy is an individual, household, institution, community, or region. The metrics associated with each variable can be adapted according to context and available data. This will act as a means of assessing impact of the initiative.
Learning Outcome F: While the training material is focused on place-based community building, there is also additional Doughnut Economics community support available. This includes active online communities and best-practice examples of how other groups have undertaken change initiatives.
