The Budapest Degrowth Doughnut (BDD) is one of the most ambitious urban sustainability initiatives in Central Europe. Developed through a participatory process involving the Municipality of Budapest and civil society partners, it adapts Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics framework to the specific ecological and social realities of the Hungarian capital. The goal: to map a path toward a city that meets the needs of all its residents without overshooting the ecological boundaries that make life possible.
Frameworks like this are essential. But they only change things if they are grounded in solid evidence, embedded in real planning processes, and monitored rigorously over time. That is precisely where DAISY comes in.
What DAISY Does in Budapest
DAISY’s engagement with the Budapest Degrowth Doughnut operates on several interconnected levels.
- Building an evidence base for biodiversity. One of the BDD’s key ambitions is to restore and protect biodiversity in the urban environment. DAISY supports this by assessing biodiversity-relevant indicators across the city — providing the kind of robust, place-specific data that planners and policymakers need to track real change, set meaningful targets, and justify investment.
- Delivering a long-term cost–benefit analysis. Transformative urban interventions are often dismissed as too expensive or too uncertain. DAISY addresses this directly by producing a comprehensive 20–25-year cost–benefit analysis of the BDD’s full intervention portfolio. By quantifying the environmental, social, and economic benefits of the Doughnut’s proposed measures — from green infrastructure to mobility transitions — DAISY helps make the case that investing in planetary limits is not a cost, but a long-term gain.
- Connecting local action to broader strategy. Evidence only travels so far if it stays in research reports. DAISY works to integrate the insights it generates into municipal planning processes, including public transport development and climate adaptation strategies. The aim is to ensure that the BDD’s vision is not treated as a standalone project, but is woven into the mainstream of how Budapest plans for its future.
- Learning together with Budapest actors. DAISY relies on ongoing cooperation and co-organised events with stakeholders across the city — municipal officials, community organisations, researchers, and businesses. This collaborative monitoring and validation process is essential for tracking how Doughnut implementation is unfolding in practice, and for ensuring that lessons are captured and shared — both within Budapest and across DAISY’s wider network of case studies and policy research.
Why This Matters Beyond Budapest
Budapest is not just a case study. It is a laboratory for a question that cities across Europe are increasingly grappling with: how do you move from a vision of ecological and social sustainability to the indicators, institutions, and investments that actually bring it about?
DAISY’s work in Budapest feeds directly into its broader research on systemic interventions and policy recommendations. The lessons learned here — about what kinds of evidence shift planning decisions, what governance arrangements allow Doughnut-style frameworks to take root, and what it takes to quantify the benefits of staying within planetary boundaries — will inform guidance for cities and policymakers well beyond Hungary.
The Budapest Degrowth Doughnut is already demonstrating that an alternative urban model is possible. DAISY’s role is to strengthen its practical impact: supporting robust indicators, embedding results into municipal and business strategies, and tracking the model’s potential for amplification and upscaling — so that what works in Budapest can inspire and inform transformation elsewhere.
