If you were to go to a grocery store in Amsterdam. you would notice a new system of detailed price tags.
6¢ to fairly pay workers extra per kilo for their carbon footprint
5¢ for the toll the farming takes on the land
4¢ extra per kilo for their carbon footprint
The Amsterdammers call this update the “true-price initiative,” and it has been running since late 2020.
After the first wave of Coronavirus, Amsterdam’s city government declared it would save its people from current and future plights by embracing the theory of “doughnut economics.”
Outlined by British economist Kate Raworth, the theory posits that 20th-century models of the economy are no longer valid in our 21st-century world. To Raworth, the goal of a state is to find the “’ sweet spot’ between the ‘social foundation,’ where everyone has what they need to live a good life, and the ‘environmental ceiling.’”
To put it simply, Amsterdam is hoping to bring all 872,000 of its residents into that “doughnut,” guaranteeing everyone has a good quality of life – without unsustainable practices that harm the planet.
In addition to price tag details, the city is introducing major infrastructure projects, new policies for government contracts, as well as a grassroots initiative that is already 400 people strong.
While Amsterdam will go down as the first major city to attempt doughnut theory implementation, they will not be alone. Copenhagen, Brussels, Dunedin, and Portland are all preparing their attempt to increase societal resiliency in the aftermath of the pandemic.
Pope Francis endorsed the theory, calling it “fresh thinking.”
While so many global economists fixate on the idea of consistent GDP increases, the utopian concept of getting as many as possible into the doughnut stands in sharp contrast to today’s common thinking.
We will keep a close eye on how this trend develops.