Economists Kate Raworth and Andrew Fanning published an updated version of the ‘Doughnut’ framework of social and planetary boundaries (October 2025), which provides a visual assessment of progress towards meeting the needs of all people within the means of the living planet.
The updated framework includes additional social dimensions and indicators, tracks outcomes over time from 2000-2022 (you can see an interactive time series version here), and disaggregates the results by country wealth.
Human Level’s Take:
The Doughnut starkly depicts how humanity has overshot planetary boundaries while continuing to underperform on basic social needs like food security, clean water, housing, education, peace and justice, racial and gender equality, and more.
There has been modest progress on the social front: since 2000, global shortfalls in basic needs have halved, with major gains in internet access, healthcare, sanitation and clean fuels. However, food insecurity and political voice are worsening and six lagging indicators (societal poverty, youth unemployment, unsafe drinking water, informal housing, income inequality and perceptions of corruption) require at least ten times faster progress to meet social minimums by 2030.
At the same time, environmental pressures have intensified, with at least six of nine planetary boundaries now exceeded. Between 2000 and 2022, nitrogen use and water disruption rose by 70–80%, CO₂ and chemical pollution more than doubled, and forest loss continued to grow. These trends must reverse rapidly to stabilise Earth systems by 2050.
The burdens are unequal. The richest countries drive most ecological damage while facing few social shortfalls. Meanwhile, poorer nations contribute little to ecological overshoot yet endure the most social deprivation. The authors argue that achieving balance requires shifting from GDP-based growth to policies that are socially equitable and ecologically regenerative.
The Doughnut framework puts forward a model where success is measured by balance rather than perpetual growth, with the end goal of ensuring equitable social gains for all and stabilising life on Earth for future generations.
Some key takeaways:
How to understand the doughnut model: The Doughnut framework, first developed in 2012 and updated annually, tracks 35 indicators to monitor trends in social deprivation and ecological overshoot. The framework assesses global progress toward balancing human well-being with environmental sustainability. It consists of the space between two rings: the inner ring represents the minimum social foundation, below which lies critical human deprivation, and the outer ring represents the ecological ceiling, past which lies critical planetary deprivation. Between these two rings is a doughnut-shaped area that represents a “safe and just space” for humanity, balancing human needs with planetary boundaries. Social indicators include factors like population living with food insecurity, population living in slums or informal settlements, population lacking access to electricity, population living in countries governed by an autocratic regime, and weighted score on the Gender Inequality Index. Ecological indicators include metrics like atmospheric CO₂ concentration, production of hazardous chemicals, area of forested land and rate of species extinction.
Surpassing the limits of the Doughnut: The model reveals a worrying divergence between progress on social and ecological indicators. We have made modest gains towards basic social needs, halving the number of indicators where the majority of people are in shortfall. The five largest social improvements since 2000 are in internet connectivity, health services coverage, child survival, safe sanitation and clean indoor fuels. To meet the Doughnut’s social foundation by 2030, the three best-performing indicators (health service coverage, electricity access and internet connectivity) would need to accelerate progress by 25–80%. Six lagging indicators (societal poverty, youth unemployment, unsafe drinking water, informal housing, income inequality and perceptions of corruption) would require at least a tenfold increase in improvement rates. Two indicators (food insecurity and political voice) are moving in the wrong direction and would need rapid reversals to eliminate shortfalls. At the same time, environmental pressures have sharply intensified. At least six of nine planetary boundaries are now being exceeded and every ecological indicator (except for ozone layer depletion) has worsened considerably since 2000. Between 2000 and 2022, six key ecological indicators showed worsening overshoot: nitrogen use and green-water disruption rose by 70–80%, while CO₂ concentration, radiative forcing, hazardous chemicals, and phosphorus more than doubled their overshoot levels. Forest loss and human appropriation of biomass also grew by 10–25%. In order to safeguard Earth-system stability by 2050, the increases in ecological overshoot would need to cease immediately and decline twice as fast towards planetary boundaries.
The burdens aren’t felt equally: The wealthiest 20% of countries, home to just 15% of the world’s population, generate over 40% of ecological overshoot, while the poorest 40% of nations, with 42% of the population, face over 60% of social shortfalls. Wealthier countries contribute a disproportionate 26–73% of environmental overshoot but experience minimal social deprivation. In contrast, poorer countries have little impact on ecological pressures yet bear the overwhelming burden of unmet social needs. According to the authors, this reflects a need to move away from measuring countries’ progress based on perpetual GDP growth and move towards progress measured by ecologically sound and socially fair economic policies and outcomes. Staying within the bounds of the Doughnut requires replacing the narrow focus on material growth and GDP with a holistic vision of meeting everyone’s essential needs within planetary limits.
