As the world prepares to gather in Glasgow to discuss our last best chance to prevent runaway climate change, the City of Amsterdam has formally committed itself to become a doughnut economy.
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Greta Thunberg said it best – “blah, blah, blah …”

That’s what we continue to hear from so many political and business leaders as they posture, haggle and seek advantage in the global effort to keep global warming to 1.5 ºC above pre-industrial levels.

Despite all the evidence offered by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and an endless array of experts from all around the world, still, on the eve of the most important climate conference ever held, its outcome is uncertain and the fate of the world is literally unknown.

Amsterdam is one city that’s decided to act. Maybe that’s because the geography of the Netherlands has more deeply embedded the global warming threat into the consciousness of its citizens, or maybe it’s the history of the Dutch as pioneers and innovators.

Whatever the reasons, the City of Amsterdam has signed up for a new, sustainable model – Kate Raworth’s ‘doughnut economics.’

Kate is an economics professor at Oxford and the founder of doughnut economics. In this report from the PBS NewsHour in the US, she explains that we need to move past GDP as a measure of economic success to one that works within the Earth’s finite resources and also provides a just society.

The reference to a ‘doughnut’ comes from Kate’s model which features two circles – an outer circle that represents the Earth’s ecological ceiling, and a second, inner ring that symbolizes minimum social foundations such as housing, education, justice, equality and access to essential services.

The bit in-between the two rings – the doughnut – “is humanity’s sweet spot,’’ as journalist Megan Thompson says in her report.

For Amsterdam, that means becoming a no waste, circular city by 2050. As Amsterdam Deputy Mayor Marieke van Doorninck says, the city is looking to end waste across three key areas – food, consumer goods and construction.

Doughnut economics isn’t embraced by everyone. Income inequality expert Branko Milanovic from the City University of New York says the public policy underpinning doughnut economics is weak, its voluntary nature makes it ineffective and limiting economic growth is unrealistic and would lock the poor in their poverty.

As always, the goal of everything at Switched ON Living is to get us to think and to act. Passive, disengaged retirement is our enemy and so if our reaction to Kate Raworth and her doughnut economics is to make us as mad as hell, that’s so much more preferable than bored indifference.

Switched OFF is zoned OUT, and that sucks. Kate talks about thriving individuals living in thriving communities, and that sounds very much like where people aged over 50 would want to be.

Whether hers is the solution, or part of the solution, to the great events of our time such as COP26, each of us can decide for ourselves. The point for the Switched ON Living Community is that we’re just as invested in our world and its problems and as committed to solutions as anyone else.