First proposed in 2012 and refined in 2017, the Doughnut took a big step on 1 October 2025 when Kate Raworth and Andrew Fanning published the renewed global model in Nature. The Doughnut’s primary aim is to shift strategy from growth at any cost to thriving within limits. This article shows why version 3.0 matters for business and how to turn it into simple, auditable KPIs across Scope 1, 2, and 3.

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1. So What Is The Doughnut?

• In one line: The Doughnut 3.0 is a compass for a thriving economy that meet everyone’s essential needs, while keeping activity within planetary limits. The social floor is inside, the ecological ceiling is outside, and the safe operating space sits between them.
• What it measures: The 2025 iteration tracks 35 indicators. Social shortfall covers essentials like health, energy, sanitation, and voice. Ecological overshoot tracks pressure on climate, nutrients, water, land, and biosphere integrity.
• Why business should care: The Doughnut is now an annually updated monitor, giving boards, lenders and cities a moving baseline. Targets that ignore the social floor and ecological ceiling will look out of date.

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2. What Is The New News?

• Nature publication. On 1 October 2025, the renewed global Doughnut was published with time-series for 2000 to 2022 and a yearly update cycle going forward. Over that period, the global GDP doubled, social shortfalls shrank modestly, but too slowly to meet 2030 needs, and ecological overshoot deepened, pushing further beyond planetary limits.
• Clearer visuals and fairness. A new "unrolled” time-series visual, the "Baguette", highlights the divergence between the three trend lines (economic, social and ecological). And country clustering by income reveals overshoot concentrated in richer groups while deprivation concentrates in poorer ones.
• Planetary context. Scientists reported 7/9 planetary boundaries now breached, with ocean acidification newly over the line. This heightens risk for food systems, coastal assets, and the ocean carbon sink.

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3. What Are Leaders Doing Now?

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A. Adopt a Doughnut-ready scorecard: 

Turn planetary boundaries into a small set of intensity KPIs you can control, then review them each year against the updated monitor.

For example:

• Energy intensity per unit of service

Vodafone tracks kilowatt hours per gigabyte used, and reports about a 90% reduction versus 2017. Use the same idea for your service unit and set a 2030 target.

• Freight emissions per fulfilled order

IKEA shifted a Poland to Spain route to a weekly block train, replacing roughly 4,500 truck trips and about 5,100 tons of CO2 each year. Copy the trigger: auto-tender to rail or sea when a lane's intensity is at least 30% lower than road.

• Nutrient intensity in priority categories

Track kilograms of nitrogen, N, or phosphorus, P, per tonne of output. H&M added Total Nitrogen and Total Phosphorus to supplier wastewater testing through ZDHC (Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals Program), with hundreds of factories enrolled. Set a threshold and avoid purchasing when suppliers exceed it. This protects water quality, cuts nitrous oxide risk, and reduces fertiliser exposure.  

• Nature-positive land impact

Kering’s Regenerative Fund for Nature finances projects that transition supply chains toward regeneration, targeting about one million hectares. Report hectares restored or protected per million in spend and tie budgets to measurable gains for biodiversity and community resilience.

• Safe water and decent work coverage

H&M requires ZDHC wastewater conformance for Tier 1 and key Tier 2 wet-processing sites, writes the requirement into contracts, collects proof via the ZDHC Gateway, and publishes coverage. Follow that model and disclose the share of sites meeting your chosen standards each year.

Outcome: a clear scorecard that shows efficiency per outcome, aligns teams, and proves steady movement toward a safe and thriving operating space.

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B. Wire it into design and finance: 

Use DEAL’s Doughnut Design for Business to lock targets into purpose, networks, governance, ownership, and finance.

For example, Unilever links a portion of leadership remuneration to a sustainability index. And Enel’s sustainability-linked bonds include an automatic coupon step-up if targets are missed.

Pick two or three auditable intensity KPIs, put real bonus weight behind them, and tie a slice of your debt to the same KPIs so performance shows up in your cost of capital.

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C. Ground Scope 3 with primary data: 

Walmart and HSBC offer better financing terms to partners that set science-based targets and report progress. Providing simple templates and a supplier portal for energy, logistics, nutrients, and land use helps partners submit quality primary activity data. Input the data into your decarbonisation platform to optimise your strategy, and refresh factors each year as the Doughnut monitor updates.  

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15 Sec Conclusion for Busy People:

The Doughnut is now an annual global monitor. It shows modest social gains and rising ecological overshoot. Seven planetary boundaries are breached, including ocean acidification. Treat this like GAAP (General Accepted Accounting Principles) for the planet: set standard intensity KPIs, hard wire financial incentives to them, and maintain an auditable trail of primary Scope 3 data.

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Sources: 

1. Fanning, A. L. and Raworth, K. (2025) ‘Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries monitors a world out of balance’, Nature, 646, pp. 47-56. doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09385-1.
2. Doughnut Economics Action Lab (2025) Doughnut 3.0 - Interactive Monitor; The Evolving Doughnut; Doughnut Design for Business. Available at: doughnuteconomics.org (Accessed October 2025).
3. Vodafone Group Plc (2025) Improving our energy efficiency (company webpage). Available at: vodafone.com (Accessed October 2025).
   • States c. 90 percent reduction in energy per GB since 2017.
4. IKEA (2023) Non-stop rail corridor Poland-Spain reduces about 4,500 trucks and 5,100 tCO2 per year (newsroom release, March 2023). Available at: ikea.com (Accessed October 2025).
5. H&M Group (2024) Discharge Analysis 2023 and prior ZDHC reporting (company PDFs). Available at: hmgroup.com (Accessed October 2025).
6. Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals Foundation - ZDHC (2025) ZDHC Gateway and Wastewater Guidelines (programme overview). Available at: roadmaptozero.com (Accessed October 2025).
7. Kering and Conservation International (2021-2024) Regenerative Fund for Nature - 1 million hectares (press releases and project pages). Available at: kering.com and conservation.org (Accessed October 2025).
8. Unilever (2024-2025) Directors’ Remuneration Report and Sustainability governance (company webpages and reports). Available at: unilever.com (Accessed October 2025).
9. Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis - IEEFA (2024) Enel’s sustainability-linked bonds and 25 bps step-ups (briefing, March 2024). Available at: ieefa.org (Accessed October 2025).
10. Walmart Inc. and HSBC (2021-2023) Science-based targets in supply chain finance (announcements and case studies). Available at: corporate.walmart.com and business.hsbc.com (Accessed October 2025).
11. Stockholm Resilience Centre and partners (2025) Planetary Boundaries 2025 updates and Planetary Health Check 2025 - breach status including ocean acidification. Available at: stockholmresilience.org (Accessed October 2025).
12. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research - PIK (2025) Planetary boundaries and Earth system risk briefs (context materials). Available at: pik-potsdam.de (Accessed October 2025).