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In 2021 one of the team had been reading an article about the concept of doughnut economics – a circular way of thinking about the way we use resources – and he brought it up. “I just mentioned it casually at a meeting, as a tool to evaluate our new quality of life programme, and it grew from there,” says Stefan Persson, Tomelilla’s organisational development manager.

The concept, developed by British economist Kate Raworth is fairly straightforward. The outer ring or ecological ceiling of the doughnut consists of the nine planetary boundaries. These are the environmental limits that humans are at risk of passing – we’ve already crossed the safety thresholds on climate change, ocean acidification and biogeochemical flows, for example, but remain within safe limits on our atmospheric aerosol loading. The inner ring forms a social foundation of life’s essentials, and the “dough” in between corresponds to a safe and just space for humanity, which meets the needs of people and planet. The model also includes principles such as systems thinking and seeing the economy as a tool, not a goal in itself.

“Doughnut economics is like running a farm. Using an excess of resources, like nutrients, on your crops is a mistake. Not using enough is a mistake too,” says Persson’s colleague Per-Martin Svensson, who is a farmer when he is not doing council work.

Putting the schema into action is challenging, but doughnut economics is being used in Tomelilla, in Sweden’s southern Skåne region, in several ways. It has been integrated into financial planning and decision support, so that rather than building a new ice rink, the plan is now to revamp an existing building.

The local government produces an annual portrait of how well it is doing at meeting doughnut economics targets. The best results in the latest diagram were on air quality, housing and social equality. Air quality in the area was good to begin with, but in order to keep improving it, young people at lower and upper secondary school have been given a free travel card for public transport. It is hoped the measure will also improve social equality in terms of access to education and health. Overcrowding and income disparities have both decreased, but it’s hard to link that directly to any of the council’s work.