Doughnuts for Transition: Regional Divergence

in the Eve of Green New Deal in the Developed World

by Clara Lea Dallaire-Fortier

Introduction

In the context of climate change, the demands for a more sustainable economy gain increasing political

momentum. From local grassroot initiatives to major scientific reports on the global environmental crisis,

diverse advocates are demanding a sustainable transition. Among such demands, many clearly underline

the social impacts of environmental crisis and express a need for an ecological transition that secures

livelihoods. These have repercussions on the nature of the transition process toward a more sustainable

economy. Notably, it indicates that environmental and social issues are intertwined and that transition

policies must account for the unequal distribution of risks and the existing vulnerabilities that reduce some

communities’ coping capacity.

The Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) movement in France recently showed that climate-oriented policies can

cause backlash if they are not reflecting social and regional disparities and vulnerabilities. The movement

underlined that for rural communities, an increase of the cost of gas generates pressure on the budget and

livelihood of families. Among the diverse Gilets Jaunes advocates, it is possible to find a range of

individuals in situations of precarity from single mothers to unemployed rural dwellers. For many, the

movement is a testimony of the consequences of austerity measures and other neoliberal policies in France

(Palombarini, 2019). As such, the movement connects the situation of the rural and poor communities to

the decline of the access to welfare services and to quality employment to indicate their vulnerability to

climate-oriented measures.

Other policy proposals are trying to link social and ecological transitions by reflecting on vulnerable

communities and their needs alongside with ecological measures. One example here can be American Green

New Deal (GND) Resolution submitted by some Democrats to Congress in February 2019. This industrial

policy aims to reduce carbon emission and create employment. The official proposal gives a central position

to frontline and vulnerable communities defined as those having higher exposure, being more sensitive and

less able to adapt to climate change. The GND proposal advocates for the implementation of welfare

policies especially for better access to basic services impacting livelihood like education, healthcare and

housing.

These examples illustrate a growing awareness that climate-oriented policies will not have an even impact

on different regions and for different communities, and to the tensions that arose between welfare and

ecological transition. This is acknowledged by several authors in the academic literature. However, many

of the academic frameworks to analyse the state of contemporary socioeconomic systems and their

environmental impacts are focusing on national analysis. This paper argues that introducing a regional-

based analytic framework can help to create more differentiated policy proposals to mediate an effective

ecological transition reflecting the needs of vulnerable communities.

Drawing on the concept of social metabolism that is defined as the energy and material exchanges occurring

in a society and enabling it to be created and reproduced, this research compares the distance between

contemporary and sustainable social metabolisms for seven regions respectively in France and the United

States. The distances evaluated indicate the need for transition and the nature of such transition processes.

The assessment of the seven regions is conveyed based on the Safe and Just Operating Space (SJOS)

framework. Following Raworth (2012), the framework proposes doughnut-shaped representation of the

environmental and social shortfalls and overshoots of current social metabolisms.

The first section offers an overview of the SJOS framework, how it has been represented in a doughnut

shape and how it has been applied for the analysis of national-level data. Furthermore, it suggests a linkage

between the SJOS and the concept of social metabolism. In the second section, these concepts are amended

to allow for regional analysis in a proposed framework that reflects on the political demands expressed in

the American Green New Deal (GND). The third section analyses regional-level data through quantitative

assessments of the current social metabolisms represented in regional doughnuts. This section visually

represents and discusses the divergence between regions in their respective overshoots and shortfalls for

the established indicators. The discussion section presents the doughnuts that result from data collection

and it analyses the regional discrepancies and their implications on transition policies. The last section

concludes.

Theoretical Background: The Safe and Just Operating Space

This section surveys the literature on SJOS. As a framework, SJOS has a number of advantages: it allows

to characterize the holistic nature of sustainability issues, it can be used as a tool to reflect on transition

processes and it proposes a visual representation of the contemporary social metabolism. This section

elaborates on the developments of the SJOS framework (Rockström et al., 2009; Raworth, 2017; O’Neill

et al., 2018; Domazet et al., forthcoming) and clarifies its advantages and potentials.

The first essential work in the SJOS literature is the planetary boundaries framework by Rockström et al.

(2009). Accounting for the complexity of the biophysical subsystems and processes, Rockström and his

colleagues identify nine boundaries that quantitatively define a safe space for human activities. These

biophysical boundaries are categorized under stratospheric ozone depletion, atmospheric loading, novel

entities, ocean acidification, biogeochemical flows, freshwater use, land-system change, biosphere integrity

and climate change. The boundaries represent the limits of material expansion of human activity and

reversely, if limits are exceeded, human activity will be at risk and environmental changes are likely to be

irreversible (Rockström et al., 2009). Thus, the safe operating space is the one contained inside the

biophysical boundaries.

The second pillar of literature consists in Raworth’s doughnut framework. It extends the planetary

boundaries framework with the social sphere to propose a safe and just space for humanity. Raworth (2017)

identifies thirteen social boundaries namely networks, energy, water, food, health, education, income and

work, peace and justice, political voice, social equity, gender equality and lastly, housing. This selection

follows the Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations. The safe and just operating space is

thus, the one comprised between Rockström et al.’s biophysical outer boundaries and the Raworth’s social

inner boundaries, forming a doughnut shape as illustrated below.

Figure 1: SJOS by Raworth, 2017

This combined framework suggests a mental and visual framework for sustainable human and

environmental interactions. It simultaneously provides a visual representation of the current shortfalls and

overshoots and a tool to identify space where intervention is needed in order to reach a more sustainable

space for humanity. Empirics presented in the doughnut visually represent contemporary social metabolism

and the interior of the doughnut (SJOS) represents the aspired sustainable social metabolism. The analysis

of ecological transition, thus, can use doughnut representations as a tool to measure the distance between

metabolisms. Data presented in doughnuts provide a snapshot of the current social metabolism. If measured

consecutively through time, it can help to assess the direction of change in a social metabolism and provide

a tool to monitor transformations. Nevertheless, it does not provide a roadmap for transition policies.

The framework has been used by O’Neill et al. (2018) to compare over 150 countries in relation to seven

biophysical and eleven social indicators. Their results show that no nation reaches high levels of wellbeing

at a sustainable level of resource use. Furthermore, while no causal link is established, the relation between

biophysical and social indicators is represented by diminishing returns whereas after a certain level of

resources use, human wellbeing stagnates1. These results present a trade-off between human needs and

environmental protection that is characteristic of the contemporary social metabolism that understands

1 In this study, conspicuous use of biophysical resources and its use linked to social indicators are not differentiated.

Thus, the difference between what could be a voluntary reduction of consumption is indistinguishable from a

reduction of consumption that would lead to precarisation of the population. Such distinction can allow for a

discussion on fairshare reduction.

wellbeing as a function of consumption. Therefore, trying to address sustainability issues requires to rethink

practices around wellbeing (Lamb and Steinberger, 2017; Domazet et al., forthcoming).

A dominant discourse on social objectives as well as transition policies are centered around growth. For

instance, the Global Green New Deal proposed by Edward Barbier in 2010 was designed as a plan for green

investments to stimulate the economy. His proposal, under the umbrella of the United Nations Environment

Programme, focused on carbon pricing under the logic that it would incentivize behavioral changes and

generate a budget to pay for the implementation of transition measures. This reasoning is capital-centered

with its focus on green growth and technological investments. It is based on a neoclassical economic

assumption that growth will trickle-down into higher levels of wellbeing and decrease poverty. However,

many evidences contest such conclusions and the validity of the dominant discourse (Barry, 2019). Political

ecologists are arguing that transition policies must be informed by ecologically rooted social science

especially a better understanding of the capitalist processes around power, modes of production and

distribution (Pirgmaier et al., 2019; Barry, 2018).

Researchers from the Institute for Political Ecology (Domazet et al., forthcoming) presented a design of the

doughnut aligned to the degrowth literature and suggests cultural indicators alongside to the biophysical

and socioeconomic ones. Building to a total of 33, indicators are organised under ten themes namely climate

change, biodiversity and agriculture for the biophysical category; energy and materials, material security,

democracy and health for the socioeconomic category; and wellbeing, democratic potential and

environmentalism for the cultural category. Another modification from Raworth (2017) is the identification

of aspirations and boundaries for all categories. As a result, the environment and the social spheres are not

visually represented as opposite in the doughnut shape. This modification suggests that human activities

can have a positive impact on the environment with actions like increasing forested area, and that it is

possible to identify human activities that are detrimental to their wellbeing and the environment, with for

instance, overwork2. The doughnut can be read as a continuum with indicators at the margin of one category

being also linked to the adjacent category. For instance, material use is conceptually close to both

biophysical and socioeconomic categories and gender inequality is close to cultural and socioeconomic

ones. By situating biophysical, cultural and socioeconomic indicators as part of a common spectrum, it

constructively participates in an interdisciplinary endeavour. To summarize, the resulting SJOS is defined

differently: it is inspired by degrowth and proposes that a safe and just balance must be generated within

all the three categories of indicators.

2 Evidence show that excessive number of hours worked damage care potential, mental health and creative

contributions to society (Coote & Franklin, 2013; Schor, 1991) and increase the emissions of greenhouse gases and

other environmental pressures (Nässén & Larsson, 2015; Rosnick & Weisbrot, 2007).

Figure 2: Degrowth Doughnut Framework by the Institute for Political Ecology, 2019

The degrowth doughnut by the Institute for Political Ecology is, like in O’Neill et al. (2018), conveying

national level analysis. Both have collected quantitative data for the majorities of countries. Where these

detailed comparisons are conveyed at the national level, the works on doughnut economics are relatively

sparse when it comes to regional comparisons. Different regional doughnuts have been created with the

examples of Amsterdam, Kokstad, Berlin and Stockholm, where municipalities and regional planners have

used them as a tool to design a policy agenda for sustainable development. For example, if a doughnut

representation indicates high levels of nitrogen, municipalities should encourage biological farming as loads

of nitrogen in the soil indicates that overuse of fertilizers in agricultural practices. Regional doughnuts are

used in academic analysis yet, focus on isolated case studies and remain micro-level (City Think Space,

2012; Dearing et al., 2014). The present paper aims to react to such gap in the literature by proposing an

analysis at the intersection between micro-level and macro-level. At the micro-level, seven regional

doughnuts are constructed for France and for the United States. At the macro-level, the selection of

doughnuts proposes a visualization of the national disparities and can be used to better understand national

transition policies. Furthermore, where the past works on regional doughnuts focus on cities, the present

sample of regions includes both urban and rural spaces.

To conclude, this research deemed appropriate the framework of SJOS to discuss the transition toward more

sustainable metabolisms and convey regional doughnuts’ comparison. As mentioned in the review of the

literature, the framework (a) allows to account the multifaceted nature of sustainability with its focus on

environmental, cultural and socioeconomic dimensions, (b) can be used as a tool to reflect on transition

processes and policies and (c) proposes a representation of contemporary social metabolisms that is relevant

to construct visual maps for both transition and regional comparison.

Proposed Framework for the Regional Transition Doughnut

The SJOS framework illustrates both the contemporary social metabolism (quantitative values of the

indicators) and the sustainable one (aspired SJOS). Transition, in simple terms, is defined as the process of

going toward the SJOS. This paper analyses the link between regional discrepancies and transition policies.

The proposed framework aims to a) represent regional social metabolisms and b) inform with GND

proposals. Therefore, the framework for regional doughnut is not a universal representation of SJOS.

Firstly, the proposed regional doughnut framework aims to represent and describe regional social

metabolisms. The indicators selected for the regional doughnuts are not the same as those for national

doughnuts, since the dynamics of social metabolisms differ at different scales. Nevertheless, key themes

from the works of Rockström et al. (2009), Raworth (2017) and Domazet et al. (forthcoming) were

respected. Some indicators were modified and for simplicity, the number of indicators was reduced. For

instance, the indicator about organic farming could hardly be used in cities to the same extent as in

agricultural regions and was selected out of the set of indicators. An advantage of going from a single macro

unit (nation) to multiple micro units (regions) is to highlight nuances in the country’s configuration. It

enables a different form of contextualization of the doughnuts. Indeed, the different regions are marked by

specific socioeconomic developments and ecosystems.

The sample of regions aimed for a balanced representation of different types of agglomeration (rural and

urban with small, medium and large cities), industrial development (post-industrial, staple dependant,

diversified and agricultural), vulnerabilities of climate changes and political affiliations. They have varying

population sizes as the aim is primarily for the sample to contain populations with similar regional profiles.

The sample disaggregated a major city between its core and a poor suburb as they were deemed to represent

different social metabolisms. Indeed, the socioeconomic difference between the core and the suburban zone

is significant. Here, Bobigny represents a poor suburb of Paris and Bronx represents one for New York.

Table 1: Sample of regions in France

Locality, Department Population

(individuals)

Area

Classification

Industry Exposition

to Climate

Political

affiliation

City of Paris, Paris 2,190,327 Urban Diversified Low Left

Bobigny, Seine-Saint-Denis 51,716 Urban Diversified Low Left

Auch, Gers 81,242 Rural Agricultural Medium Center-left

Anger, Maine-et-Loire 380,215 Urban Diversified Medium Left

Limoges, Haute-Vienne 297,957 Semi Diversified Medium Center

Narbonne, Aude 165,940 Rural Staple dependant High Center-left

Roubaix, Nord 96,412 Urban Post-industrial

Staple dependant

Low Right

Table 2: Sample of regions in the United States

Locality, State Population

(individuals)

Area

Classification

Industry Exposition

to Climate

Political

affiliation

New York City, New York 1,653,877 Urban Diversified Low Left

Bronx, New York 1,455,846 Urban Diversified Low Left

City of Los Angeles, California 13,261,538 Urban Diversified Medium Left

Williamson, Texas 508,313 Semi Diversified Medium Right

Manatee, Florida 363,542 Semi Diversified High Center

Genesee, Michigan 410,881 Urban Post-industrial Low Right

Fayette, West Virginia 133,160 Rural Post-industrial

Staple dependant

Low Right

Seven regions were selected to convey the national comparison for France and the United States. The

selection of countries follows research pragmatic reason and the proposed framework could be applied to

other countries. Nevertheless, these are characteristic of large industrialized countries with different regions

and are currently facing lively debates around transition policies. The sample of regions does not provide

perfect representativity of the national territory, yet the objective of the study is rather to discuss how

regional discrepancies can inform transitions and why they are relevant for macro climate-oriented policies.

Due to limited data availability, indicators for region sometimes had to be estimated by the value for higher

geographical entities with, for instances, departments in France or states in the United States. This implies

that for some indicators, the value of two regions is the same with, for example, the per Capita carbon

emission in New York City and its suburb. Overall, data availability was higher in the United States, which

increases the reliability of its regional comparison.

Secondly, the proposed regional doughnut framework interacts with the GND proposal by Representative

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Edward Markey and presented to Congress on February 5th, 2019.

This GND consists in an industrial policy oriented toward environmental protection with welfare measures.

It focuses on the reduction of carbon emission, the development of infrastructure, and welfare measures to

the benefit of frontline and vulnerable communities. These communities have higher exposures, more

sensitivity and are less able to adapt to climate change due to a variety of reasons including enhanced

occupational exposure, dependence on natural and cultural resources, less access to economic resources,

demographic factors and discrimination linked to race and gender. The GND measures linked to

infrastructure, industries and environmental protection include:

- net-zero carbon emissions in 10 years,

- increasing resiliency to climate impacts,

- investments in public transportation and “smart” energy infrastructure,

- overhauling transportation systems with high-speed rail and zero-emission vehicles,

- meet power demand with clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources and expand energy

efficiency and access to power,

- supporting sustainable agricultural practices, and

- using reforestation to absorb carbon.

As mentioned above, the GND resolution also comprises welfare measures. These measures are closer to ideas of social equity and just transition, which distinguish them from the New Deal and Obama’s Clean

Energy Plan. For instance, evidences have shown that the New Deal by Franklin D. Roosevelt did not

address key elements that led African Americans to be marginalised and live in precariousness, such as job

discrimination, access to land and working conditions (Sklaroff, 2009). The welfare measures include

- a guaranteed job with fair pay, family and medical leave, paid vacations and retirement security,

- universal high-quality healthcare,

- free higher education,

- access to affordable, safe and adequate housing, - stronger labor, workplace health and safety, anti-discrimination, and wage and hour standards,

- clean-up of hazardous waste sites, and

- access to clean water and air, health and affordable food, and nature.

The definition of these measures and their implementations necessitates more detailed explanations. This

paper notably argues that more clarity on the definition of frontline and vulnerable communities is needed.

Further mapping of these communities using the doughnut framework could, in additional research, support

such clarification process. Nonetheless, the outline of this policy proposal echoes the main themes presented

in the proposed framework. Its links to the American GND are largely founded through the indicators. The

regional doughnuts selected nine themes that include ten aspirations and eight boundaries indicators.

Table 3: Overview of the Indicators

Categories Themes Aspirations Boundaries

Biophysical

Climate Change Climate Change

Resilience CO2 Emission

Environmental

quality

Wilderness Protection Nitrogen Use

Forest Area

Consumption Renewable Energy

Use Material Use

Socioeconomic

Health Life Expectancy Access to Healthcare

Infrastructures Educational

Attainment

Unsustainable

Commuting

Work Poverty Overwork

Equity - Inequality

Cultural

Attitude toward global warming

Human’s Role Climate Change Nonchalance Degrowth

Wellbeing Community -

Indicators are linked to the GND through three distinct core concepts: infrastructure, frontline and

vulnerable communities and environmental protection. Firstly, four indicators reflect the needs for socially

and environmentally sustainable infrastructures: Renewable Energy Use, Unsustainable Commuting,

Educational Attainment and Access to Healthcare. For Renewable Energy, the indicator measures the share

of the total energy that comes from renewable sources like wind, solar or hydroelectric. Thus, the indicator

is interested in assessing the production capacity on the total of the production, it varies with the demand

for total energy and with changes in the production renewable energy, but these two elements are

undistinguishable. Sustainable social metabolism would require the reduction of total production and for

renewable energy to constitute 100% of such production. It is indicative of the renewable energy production

capacity of a region. Another indicator, Unsustainable Commuting, is linked to transport infrastructure and

presents the share of the population that uses non-sustainable modes of commuting when going to work.

Sustainable modes include public transport, cycling and walking. The indicator serves as a proxy for

accessibility (affordability and availability) and habits of individuals. For the remaining indicators

(Educational Attainment and Access to Healthcare), they represent the state of accessibility to education

and healthcare for the population, both considered as essential for fair opportunities and wellbeing, and

mentioned in the American GND proposal.

Secondly, frontline and vulnerable communities represent diverse groups of individuals ranging from

populations of coalfield whose employment depends on a declining production to non-white marginalized

populations inside American cities. In this sense, it is not possible to generalize who these communities are.

In the design of the studies, a special interest has been given to these communities in the selection of the

region and in the selection of criteria. On the one hand, the sample includes the city of Flint and the suburb

of Paris (Bobigny) and New York City (Bronx), which are known to have ethnically diverse populations

and considerable level of poverty. Other regions in the sample are the deindustrialized coalfields of Fayette

County in West Virginia and Roubaix in the North of France. On the other hand, a number of indicators

have been included with Inequality, Poverty and Life Expectation, which are particularly illustrative of

socioeconomic conditions. Also, in the cultural sphere, the indicator, Community, defined as individual’s

opinion about where they live, their feeling of safety and pride for their community, expresses people’s

perception on being in a frontline or vulnerable position.

Third and lastly, many indicators are linked to environmental protection. These are primarily presented

under the biophysical categories and identified under the themes of climate change, environmental quality,

consumption. More indicators are presented under the two other categories with the themes of attitude

toward global warming and infrastructure. With these links to the GND, the proposed framework of regional

doughnuts can better inform how the transition policies can be designed by indicating/mapping the needs

for infrastructures, the various socioeconomic vulnerabilities and the state of environmental protection and

destruction.

Before concluding this section, the potentials and shortcomings of the regional doughnuts to analyse

transition should be listed. On one hand, by understanding that humans are influencing the biosphere in

pervasive way, the regional doughnuts provide space to identify how changes in culture, biophysical states

and socioeconomic realities will shape the new role of humans in sustainable social metabolism. High levels

of poverty or distrust in their community can for instance constrain human actions or the efficiency of

policies. Another example is the presence of extractive industry in the region that can be a major polluter

but also leave the local population vulnerable to fluctuations in employment as the price of the resource

varies. The difference between the levels of these indicators are informative to properly design transition

policies. On the other hand, the set of indicators only present snapshots of a situation. This ignores many

of the dynamics involved in the transition process and the interconnections between these indicators. This

limits the assessment of the transition policies and their relative impact on regions. Nevertheless, the scaling

down to regional level (regional doughnuts) rather than representing national average (country doughnuts)

provides information that can spark new research.

Discussion

The present section analyses the selected sample of regional doughnuts. The doughnuts have been

constructed by using the latest available data, which range from 2012 to 2018. Key results from the

quantitative values presented in doughnuts include that no region is comprised in a sustainable social

metabolism, that there is an important need for sustainable infrastructures throughout rural and urban spaces

and that there are communities that can be identified as frontline and vulnerable and that political leadership

at different scale influence biophysical outcomes. Key observations about the potentials and shortcomings

of doughnuts to inform transition policies are also presented and include the importance of many policy

levels and of the role of welfare systems and community resilience and the need to implement regional

doughnut frameworks with better data and a methodology to link indicators together and regions together.

A point that stands out is that none of the regions presents a sustainable social metabolism. More precisely,

none reaches the SJOS in neither of the three categories (cultural, socioeconomic and biophysical). For

instance, the levels of carbon emission for all regions in the United States go far beyond the boundary of

two tons/year/Capita. Comparing the two countries, the American regional doughnuts (Table 4) are further

from their sustainable social metabolisms than the French regional doughnuts (Table 5). Nevertheless, one

should be careful with national comparison based on regional doughnuts as the indicators of the proposed

framework are not defined similarly in both countries3. Yet, this result is aligned with the results on national

doughnuts presented by Domazet et al. (forthcoming) where indicators for both countries are similarly

defined.

The selected regions have been divided among three groups to provide an easier read of the results: i) large

urban agglomeration that includes large cities and suburbs, ii) small and medium town and iii) post-

industrialized towns that have similar population density to small and medium towns.

Table 4: Regional Transition Doughnuts in the United States

Lar

ge

Urb

an A

gglo

mer

atio

ns

New York City, New York The Bronx, New York City of Los Angeles,

California

Sm

all

and M

ediu

m T

ow

ns

Williamson County, Texas Manatee County, Florida

Genesee County, Michigan Fayette County, West Virginia

Post

-indust

rial

ized

To

wn

s

Legend: CO2 Emission (CE), Nitrogen Use (NU), Material Use (MU), Climate Change Resilience (CCR), Wilderness

Protection (WP), Forest Area (FA), Renewable Energy (RE), Climate Change Nonchalance (CCN), Community (C),

Human's Role (HSR), Degrowth (D), Healthcare Access (HA), Poverty (P), Overwork (O), Inequality (I), Life

Expectancy (LE), Educational Attainment (EA), Unsustainable Commuting (UC)

3 This divergence is due to limited data availability at the regional scale especially with cultural indicators and to the

different socioeconomic realities in countries with, for examples, the poverty line being determined nationally or

different structures of health and education systems.

Table 5: Regional Transition Doughnuts in France

Lar

ge

Urb

an A

gglo

mer

atio

ns City of Paris, Paris Bobigny, Seine-Saint-Denis

S

mal

l an

d M

ediu

m T

ow

ns

Angers, Maine-et-Loire Auch, Gers Limoges, Haute-Vienne

Po

st-i

nd

ust

rial

To

wn

s

Roubaix, Nord Narbonne, Aude

Legend: CO2 Emission (CE), Nitrogen Use (NU), Material Use (MU), Climate Change Resilience (CCR), Wilderness

Protection (WP), Forest Area (FA), Renewable Energy (RE), Climate Change Nonchalance (CCN), Community (C),

Human's Role (HSR), Degrowth (D), Healthcare Access (HA), Poverty (P), Overwork (O), Inequality (I), Life

Expectancy (LE), Educational Attainment (EA), Unsustainable Commuting (UC)

Interestingly, the difference between Large Urban Agglomerations and Small and Medium Towns is not

less pronounced than expected in the sample of regions. The exceptions are the levels of Educational

Attainment and of Inequality. Where modes of commuting are often assumed to be sustainable in large

cities, the doughnuts illustrate the need to develop sustainable commuting infrastructures in both rural and

urban spaces. Indeed, the city of Los Angeles, the Bronx and Bobigny are outside the aspired SJOS level

for sustainable commuting, measured by the use of public transport, walking and cycling to the workplace.

Overall, a significant difference is found between the doughnuts of cities and their poor suburbs. As such,

Bobigny and the Bronx are likely to be part of frontline and vulnerable communities as described in the

American GND. It is also worth noting that no sustainable level for poverty is reached. It is at its furthest

in Roubaix (44.26% of the population living below the national poverty line), Bobigny (29.99%), the Bronx

(29.70%) and Genesee (20.00%). The three latter regions also have higher concentration of African

Americans or immigrants.

A key conclusion that emerges from the data collection is that Post-industrial Towns have weak

socioeconomic indicators with low levels of Educational Attainment, high shares of their population living

under the poverty line and low levels of Life Expectancy. Fayette County in Appalachia (US) experienced

multiple waves of reduction in coal employment including a recent one, and Roubaix in the north of France

has experienced a steady decline of its coal industries that started in 1960. Two other regions are post-

industrialized: Genesee (US) where the decline of the car industry accelerated in 1980s and Narbonne

(France) where a nuclear processing plant and related industries have reduced its number of workers. The

vulnerability of local populations to deindustrialization is long well known (Bluestone and Harrison, 1982).

The spatial implications of green job creation and brown job destruction, characteristic of transition, has

been pointed out in contemporary research (Carley et al., 2019). Indeed, the regions who produced non-

renewable energy are not necessarily the same where the development of renewable energy will occur as it

depends on geophysical resources.

The presence of these vulnerable post-industrial regions has implications on the nature of the transition.

The literature indicates that their vulnerability is directly linked to the structure of the economy that creates

large fluctuations in production and employment that follow the price of commodities. It implies that if

GND only provides an economic stimulus that is not accompanied by measures to address the structural

weaknesses of production processes, it is likely to postpone in time the vulnerabilities of these regions.

In the United States, the lowest life expectancies are found in Fayette (74.30 years) and Genesee (76.06

years) with a considerable gap compared to other regions and are under the aspired life expectancy of 80

years. In France, the life expectancies in the two post-industrialized regions are one or two years below

other regions but above the aspired level (80 years). The poor suburbs of Bobigny and the Bronx are found

to have lower life expectancies. Life expectancy can be linked to access to health, healthy food, decent

housing and more. It is also worth noting that water pollution, with lead contamination of water in Genesee

and water pollution linked to coal extraction in Fayette, and other pollutions linked to uranium waste in

Narbonne represent important problem in the four post-industrialized regions. The doughnuts by Raworth

(2017) and Domazet et al. (forthcoming) include indicators on accessible and quality water and housing.

In the United States, post-industrial regions are characterized by weak Community indicators, which

express the population’s opinion about where they live, their feeling of security and pride in their

community. In Genesee County, it is likely that the low Community indicator is linked to the high

criminality rates of the city of Flint. To summarize, poor suburbs and post-industrial communities are

identified as the frontline and vulnerable communities in the sample of regions.

The welfare system in the United States and France is considerably different (Esping-Andersen, 1990). The

needs are expressed through welfare-related indicators (Poverty, Inequality, Health Access, Climate

Change Resilience and Educational Attainment) are further from the aspired outcomes in the United States

compared to France. Considering that the health systems differ in the two countries, it appears that Health

Access in the United States is insufficient. Access to health insurance consists in a considerable overburden

for community to reach SJOS and limits their coping capacities, which are mobilized during transition

processes (Carley et al., 2018).

The results can also help to discuss the links between regions. In the biophysical realm, the high levels of

carbon emission are linked to the consumption of other regions and to export with the example of coal

production in Fayette that is predominantly consumed outside the county. Another example of the link

between regions is found in the Forest Area, where Fayette and Narbonne, both considered more vulnerable

communities, reach the sustainable forest coverage in their territories. It might be more complex for cities

to reach the aspired minimum of 30% . Yet, many studies underline the importance of parks in cities to

lower temperature during heat waves, increase biodiversity in cities and to reduce air pollution (Givoni,

1991). Thus, even if the importance of each biophysical aspirations and boundaries is recognized in all

regions, there might be different levels set for each region if inter-regional dynamics are considered.

The analysis of the results also indicates the role of many political entities in the outcomes presented. For

instance, wilderness protection measures are not generally led by municipal nor national policymakers. It

is the level of the states in the United States and the departments in France that are observed to be key in

establishing protected areas. The clear example is California where the state is proactive in adopting

measures for wilderness protection with, for instance, the California Wilderness Act of 1984. Municipal

leadership also plays an important role in the outcomes presented by the regional doughnuts. For instance,

the green transition plans have been put in place in the cities of New York and Angers, and the city of

Georgetown, Williamson County sets a 100% renewable energy program and currently functions under

86% of renewable energy from wind and solar. This illustrates that a diversity of political actors is currently

being catalyst of the transition process. Yet, the regional doughnuts illustrate that more work needs to be

done to reach the sustainable social metabolism. This includes the need for sustainable infrastructures as

outlaid in the American GND and highlighted by low levels of indicators for renewable energy production

and sustainable modes of commuting throughout the regions.

One modification that is proposed is the creation of indicators of carbon emission and material consumption

for different groups from citizens of different income levels and to public and private sectors. For transition

policy, these specific indicators can be understood as caps on consumption. This modification could be

relevant for all other versions of the doughnuts and that would require political discussion about the fair

threshold for the different groups and also, a better data access. Currently, the CO2 Emission and the

Material Use indicators present levels that are largely above the boundary. In the United States, the

estimates for material use average at 59.96 tons/capital/year and range between 48.78 and 68.03 whereas

the boundary is 8 tons/capita/year. Whereas the value of the indicators for CO2 emission would ideally be

below 2 tons/capita/year, it is reaching 51.64 in West Virginia due to the coal powerplants. In France, the

carbon emission levels are estimated between 2.46 tons/capita/year for Bobigny and 9.72 for Narbonne,

and the material use levels are estimated around similar averages to the United States. This is important

notably to track where potential increase in carbon emission and material use might come from as these are

directly linked the key global threshold of the 1.5 °C temperature increases above pre-industrial levels set

by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2018).

To design the policies, one shortcoming of the current doughnut representations concerns the interrelations

between indicators. Indeed, as mentioned previously by Dearing et al. (2014); “[a regional doughnut]

framework does not provide a system dynamic analysis of the relationships between any of the social and

environmental conditions”. Studies have shown that the relations between the indicators are likely to be

important, yet by virtue of being part of a complex system, the relation is non-linear and considered hard

to predict (Bendell, 2018). Further analysis is needed. Lastly, this section listed many dimensions that can

be informing transition policies. It could be further explored by expanding the regional doughnut framework

to more regions for better country specific analysis and to more countries to inform further transition

policies.

Conclusion

The complexity of the transition process resides in its holistic nature. The changes necessary to reduce

carbon emissions are linked to socioeconomic dynamics, infrastructure and inductrial processes as well as

culture and attitudes. A strength of the framework is to provide a set of eighteen indicators from the cultural,

socioeconomic and biophysical spheres in a single representation. This study contributed to the literature

by underlining the regional discrepancies, and how it can inform transition policies like the American GND.

It indicated that large efforts must be made throughout the regions to reduce material use and carbon

emissions as no region met the sustainable biophysical levels. Furthermore, it shows the divergence

between regional social metabolisms and how these results from local to national policy leadership, from

their industrial histories and from the presence of natural resources. Divergences indicates that transition

policies must target the regional configuration throughout a country and address its structural

vulnerabilities. The regional doughnut visualisation consists in a relevant tool to better understand such

configuration and pave the roadmap toward sustainable social metabolism. However, it shall be companied

by further analysis as social metabolisms are complex system. As such, the outcomes presented in the

doughnut representations should be understood in relation to welfare systems, industrial developments,

cultural attitudes and biophysical realities. A better understanding of the interconnection between social

metabolisms is also a new venue for research. Nevertheless, the regional doughnuts do provide a starting

point to better understand the complexity of a transition toward sustainable social metabolisms.

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Annex A: Data Description

Table 6: Biophysical Indicators

Themes Indicators

Boundary/

Aspiration

Value

Definitions of the indicators

Climate Change

Climate Change

Resilience

(USA)

2.713

An index by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Climate

Resilience Screening Index, which comprises risk, governance,

society, built environment, and natural environment. (threshold)

Climate Change

Resilience (FR) 100%

The percentage of territory that is covered by a plan of

prevention to natural risks. (threshold)

CO2 Emission 2 tons/

capita/year

The annual carbon dioxide emissions per capita measured in

metric tonnes. (boundary)

Environmental

quality

Wilderness

Protection 1/3

The share of terrestrial and marine areas that is protected.

(threshold)

Forest Area 1/3 The share of terrestrial and marine areas that is a forested area.

(threshold)

Nitrogen Use 45 kg/ha The quantity of nitrogen fertilizer used per area of cropland per

year. (boundary)

Consumption

Renewable

Energy Use 90%

The percentage of total final energy consumption that comes

from renewable sources. (threshold)

Material Use 8 tons/

capita/year

The total amount of materials used in domestic consumption.

(boundary)

Table 7: Socioeconomic Indicators

Themes Indicators

Boundary/

Aspiration

Value

Definitions of the indicators

Health Life Expectancy 80 years The life expectancy at birth. It provides a proxy for the mental

and physical health of the population. (threshold)

Access to

Healthcare

(USA)

0%

The share of the individual who are not covered by health

insurance coverage for the civilian noninstitutionalized

population. (boundary)

Access to

Healthcare (FR) X

The number of consultation per capita defined as the localized

potential access to general practitioners. (boundary)

Infrastructures

Educational

Attainment

(USA)

1/3 The share of individual who have completed a bachelor’s degree

or higher, for people above 25 years old. (threshold)

Educational

Attainment

(FR)

1/3

The share of individual who are not currently in training who

have completed graduated studies, for people above 15 years

old. (threshold)

Unsustainable

Commuting 85%

The share of individual who are not using sustainable mode to

commute to work on the total share of commuting mode and

excluding individual who work from home. (boundary)

Work

Poverty 100% The share of the population that lives above the poverty line

established by the national statistical agency. (threshold)

Overwork 32 hrs/

week

The average weekly hours worked by individual in the active

population. (boundary)

Equity

Inequality

(USA) 10%

The ratio of the average income of the top 1% divided by the

average income of the bottom 99% with unit in percentage.

(boundary)

Inequality (FR) 0.30 The Gini coefficient of household income. (boundary)

Table 8: Cultural Indicators

Themes Indicators

Boundary/

Aspiration

Value

Definitions of the indicators

Attitude toward

global warming

Human’s Role 2/3 The ratio of population who think that global warming is caused

mostly by human activities. (threshold)

Degrowth 2/3

The ratio of the population for the county who think protecting

the environment is more important than economic growth, even

if it reduces economic growth. (threshold)

Climate Change Nonchalance

1/3 The ratio of population who are not very/not at all worried about global warming. (boundary)

Wellbeing

Community (USA)

75

The ranking of American community on their opinion about

where they live, their feeling safe, and pride in their community, higher scores represent more negative opinion. (boundary)

Community (FR)

20% x