In a small town in Sweden, the local authority is carrying out an unusual experiment.

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. 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.

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.

The people of Tomelilla welcome the challenge and are extremely proud of the way their town is forging a path. As Jonna Olsson, one of the staff at the council says: “Doughnut economics is a really interesting way to work with sustainability. It feels cool to be a cog in international change.”

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