Kate Raworth's doughnut economics frames a sustainable economy as a ring between a social foundation (below which people lack essentials) and an ecological ceiling (beyond which the planet's systems destabilise). This model reduces it to 12 tracked dimensions — 6 social, 6 ecological — each a radial bar:
Social achievement_i = clamp( R · sens_i / P , 0, 1.6 )
Ecological pressure_i = clamp( T · P · ecoSens_i · (1 − 0.8·E) , 0, 3 )
R = redistribution / social investment (0–1)
E = resource efficiency / decoupling (0–1)
T = material throughput multiplier
P = population scale multiplier
Each social bar's length is R_floor · achievement_i — falling short of the inner ring is a shortfall. Each ecological bar's length is R_ceiling · pressure_i — exceeding the outer ring is an overshoot. A dimension only sits "in the doughnut" when its bar reaches the inner ring (social) or stays inside the outer ring (ecological).
- Raising throughput without raising efficiency pushes every ecological bar outward through the ceiling.
- Raising population divides social achievement (more people to reach) while multiplying ecological pressure (more people consuming) — the model's core trade-off.
- Redistribution only affects the social floor; efficiency only affects the ecological ceiling — decoupling growth from resource use is the only lever that shrinks overshoot without cutting throughput.
The 12 dimensions are a reduced set standing in for Raworth's full framework (12 social minima, 9 planetary boundaries) — food, water, health, education, income/work and energy access on the social side; climate, biodiversity, freshwater, land conversion, nitrogen pollution and ocean acidification on the ecological side.