Doughnuts may be good for us!

If the post-COVID strategy for the tourism sector is anything to go by, then the government’s wider post-COVID strategy, that promised by this summer, will not say much. If it proposes real and deep structural change, then government will probably ignore it, the same way it has repeatedly ignored its own Transport Master Plan.

The underlying problem is one: a refusal by government and Parliament to go for real, deep and meaningful structural reform, tackle the quality of life and ecological crisis, and stand up to arrogant lobbies. It also boils down to the dogmatic approach to the market. A market fundamentalism, were growth at all costs, from wherever that ‘growth’ comes is acceptable. The negative effects of this so –called ‘growth’ are then either ignored or else the state, our communities and society at large, are lumped with the costs – be they social, economic or ecological. It should be clear by now that throughout the years, in one way or another, PL and PN governments have bent over backwards to protect our homegrown construction oligarchs.

Malta’s richest families have access to officials and information nobody else has. The fake morally corrupt pseudo-socialists in government, are more interested in creating privileged and protected classes of people, such as widening the scope of ‘position of trust’ appointments then reforming a broken economic system. The Nationalists on the other hand, remind us on Xtra, that they aspire to be, or continue to be, as big a tent as possible, diluting policy to the point that it is ineffective. The hunting with the hounds and running with the hares syndrome, rendering politics and policy to a mere Bonapartist contest between two CEOs. The ‘company’ and its policies remain the same. The sharpest suit wins.

We need economic renewal now, based on an ecological and social transformation. An useful reincarnation of a long held Green and progressive view of the economy is making the rounds on the internet and major news platforms around Europe. It is called the doughnut model, based on Kate Raworth’s doughnut economics theory.

The doughnut model is being implemented in Amsterdam, a municipal area of some 1 million inhabitants, spearheaded by Green, and progressive councillors, including Marieke van Doorninck, the municipal councillor responsible for a circular economy. Amsterdam city council has adopted a five-year circular economy strategy, which includes measures that businesses, the municipality, and also citizens will have to adopt. The basis of the economic plan is that instead of approaching environment, wellbeing and the economy in a piecemeal fashion, societies and businesses work towards a model of economic development that respects the boundaries of the planet and society.

The doughnut model is useful because it helps us to tell the story, of how local, national and global structures are interlinked. It brings society’s two main categories of problems – social problems and environmental problems – together under one framework.

As Marieke van Doornick explains in an interview published in the Green European Journal “too many people are dealing with poverty, loneliness or housing problems.”

“At the same time, we are exceeding planetary boundaries because of the way we inhabit the earth. Climate change and loss of biodiversity threaten to make the planet unliveable. The doughnut provides a clear picture of this dual problem and helps to identify contradictions at the city level. For example, housing prices partly determine the economic performance of the city: when prices are high, we think that the city is doing well. However, for many, it means they can no longer afford a house here. We want to change that.”

The doughnut model also extends the concept of the circular economy – it goes beyond ‘doing things circularly’, and looks at the bigger picture. From trying to be as circular as possible when purchasing products and collecting and processing waste, to connecting the measures needed to make our communities, towns, cities and countries more socially harmonious and liveable in all respects.

The doughnut has two limits: the outer ring (the ecological ceiling) and the inner ring (the social foundation). In Amsterdam, on the social level, the city has taken stock of unaffordable housing as well as people living in social isolation and consequently at a higher risk of experiencing loneliness and depression.

From the ecological side, mapping of greenhouse gas emissions and the overconsumption of non-sustainable materials was undertaken. Instruments to measure the impact of consumption patterns on people and nature in other countries were also developed – there is no Planet B after all! The doughnut enables us to look into the social and ecological impacts that our local economy has on places around the world where our products and raw materials originate from.

After taking stock then come concrete actions and measures. In construction, for example, measures in Amsterdam range from collecting leftover latex paint to introducing material passports that keep a detailed record of the composition of buildings so that its constitutive elements are easier to reuse. The plan is to make this material passport’ compulsory for the entire construction sector. Social initiatives include projects to properly insulate homes to reduce energy bills.

Of course there is so much a municipality, even one as large as Amsterdam, can do, the doughnut model should be expanded to include the economies of whole countries and the European Union. Marieke van Doorninck speaks of “a long-cherished wish for a lower tax on labour and higher taxes on the use of raw materials… If labour remains expensive, there is a strong incentive to use raw materials more lavishly, avoid precision work and repairs, and buy Chinese products in bulk. We want labour to be valued more and the use of primary raw materials to be reduced as much as possible. A simple tax measure will help companies that want to work circularly”. Producing, consuming and reprocessing locally will create jobs. At the same time, we need to use primary raw materials sparingly, and that there is more to life than our culture of consumption and waste.

I do not need to reiterate here that the mantra of maximizing numbers in tourism, maximizing the profits of construction magnates, and of a few well-connected families, and squeezing every cent of profit out of cheap labour is wreaking havoc with our quality of life, social fibre and ecological balance in Malta. We need challenge the dogma of the market which encourages, worldwide, a concentration of extreme wealth for the very few, at the expense of our quality of life and wellbeing. We need to emphasise cooperation rather than a competitive race to the bottom. We need to discuss redistribution and sustainability. Doughnuts may do us a lot of good after all!

This article is based on an interview ‘The Doughnut Model for a Fairer, Greener Amsterdam’ published in the European Green Journal on the 15 October 2020