Doughnut Economics Action Lab
The Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL) was founded in 2019 by Kate Raworth, Rob Shorter, and Carlota Sanz to support the growing global community applying the doughnut framework in practice. DEAL operates as a distributed network rather than a centralized institution, providing tools, methodology, case studies, and community infrastructure to cities, businesses, educators, and communities adapting the framework to their contexts.
In the AI Story
DEAL's signature contribution is the City Portrait methodology — a diagnostic tool that enables a specific place to locate itself on the doughnut's two axes by measuring local social-foundation performance and local ecological-ceiling transgression. Amsterdam's 2020 portrait was the first major application; dozens of subsequent portraits have been produced for cities and regions across Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific.
The organization has also developed toolkits for business adoption (including the "Enterprise Design" methodology), educational curricula for schools and universities, and community organizing frameworks. Its commons-based operating model — tools released under open licenses, contributions welcomed from the community — embodies the distributive design principles the framework advocates.
Applied to AI, DEAL represents a model for how operational institutional infrastructure can be built around a new economic framework. An analogous infrastructure for AI governance — providing diagnostic tools, implementation methodology, community support — does not currently exist. Building it would be part of translating the doughnut's AI implications into practical policy.
Key Ideas
Distributed network. DEAL operates through community infrastructure rather than centralized delivery.
City Portrait methodology. The diagnostic translation of the framework into place-specific accounting.
Open commons. Tools and methodologies released under permissive licenses, embodying distributive design.
Institutional infrastructure. The model for how an economic framework moves from theory to practice at scale.
Appears in the Orange Pill Cycle
Further reading
- Doughnut Economics Action Lab, About DEAL (ongoing)
- Kate Raworth et al., Creating City Portraits Methodology (2020)
- DEAL, Community Stories and Case Studies (ongoing)
- Kate Raworth, Doughnut Economics (2017)
- Leonora Grcheva, "The Doughnut for Urban Development" (2022)