Seminar 6: Making City Growth Sustainable and Just: The Doughnut Economics

The April and May talks in the Greening Our City series will take a broad view of “greening”, (in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals). The talks will focus on the approach of “Doughnut Economics”, and its application at city level.

Kate Raworth, the originator of the image of the Doughnut, writes that for a long time “economics has been fixated on GDP, or national output, as its primary measure of progress. That fixation has been used to justify extreme inequalities of wealth coupled with unprecedented destruction of the living world. For the twenty-first century a far bigger goal is needed: meeting the human rights of every person within the means of our life-giving planet.…The challenge now is to create economies – local to global – that bring all humanity into [a]…safe and just space.” (Kate Raworth, Doughnut Economics: Seven way to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist, 2017)

Recently a number of cities in Europe and America have followed the lead of Amsterdam in seeking to implement this vision at city level. Cork may be able to learn from their experience. (See article in Time magazine, Feb. 2021, HERE).

This seminar will provide an introduction to the idea of Doughnut Economics.

It will be given by Dr. Declan Jordan of Cork University Business School Title: Making City Growth Sustainable and Just: The Doughnut Economics Approach. Register HERE for 27th April

Declan Jordan is a Senior Lecturer in Economics and Co-Director of the Spatial and Regional Economics Research Centre. Declan's research interests include innovation, regional and urban economics, competitiveness, and innovation and enterprise policy. He has published widely in these areas in international peer reviewed journals. Declan is currently a member of the Editorial Board of REGION, the journal of the European Regional Science Association (ERSA) and an editor of the early career section of Regional Studies, Regional Science. He is a member of the publications committee of Spatial Economic Analysis. He was Chair of the Local Organising Committee for the 58th Annual ERSA Congress in Cork in August 2018, the largest meeting of regional scientists in the world. The Congress brought over 700 delegates to Cork, contributing approximately €1.2m to the city economy. He is a long-standing member, and former Secretary, of the Regional Science Association International - British and Irish Section. Prior to joining UCC, Declan gained substantial management and corporate experience, as Manager, Consulting with the leading Irish treasury and financial consulting firm in the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) and as Treasury Manager with Intel Ireland. He has taught on the Executive MBA programme and has supervised PhD students to completion. Declan has a PhD (Economics) from University College Cork.