“Creativity and problem-solving were enabled by the collaborative nature of the workshops. Both individual and collective thinking played a role, and using drawing as a tool helped participants develop ideas visually and work together to map problems.”
The seed
In Budapest, researchers at Corvinus University of Budapest together with GreenFormation, have developed a participatory sustainability framework — the Budapest Degrowth Doughnut (BDD) — which applies “doughnut thinking” to an urban sustainability transition The BDD integrates biophysical, socio-economic, and cultural indicators to map Budapest’s distance from a safe and just space for both people and planet. The seed lies in the methodology itself: rather than importing a global template, the BDD was co-created through workshops and bilateral consultations with academics, municipal officials, transport planners, and civil society, producing a locally meaningful, politically embedded sustainability narrative. In 2024, it was formally incorporated into Budapest’s Climate City Contract — a significant achievement in integrating degrowth principles and “doughnut” thinking into policy documents.
The drivers
The BDD emerged from three distinct but convergent motivations. At Corvinus University of Budapest, the starting point was academic curiosity about alternative economic paradigms — specifically the desire to go beyond conventional climate models and build a framework that captures social injustice and ecological pressures together. The degrowth doughnut was chosen precisely because no other widely used sustainability tool integrates biophysical, socio-economic, and cultural dimensions simultaneously. For Budapest Municipality, the entry point was more pragmatic: city officials, already working on Budapest’s 2030 climate neutrality target, were exploring how the framework could be embedded into the city’s Climate City Contract. For sectoral partners such as the Budapest Public Transport Company, it was the participatory methodology itself — the open, facilitated workshops and visual, collaborative tools — that made engagement attractive. The structured, professionally facilitated workshop process built trust across these very different institutional actors, and municipal engagement — initially hesitant — deepened as the process produced concrete, usable outputs: a participatory system map, a set of indicators that reflects local specificities , and actionable policy recommendations. The research findings handed over to the Budapest municipal government in September 2024 enriched the Budapest’s Climate City Contract, a document primarily focused on climate neutrality, with new perspectives.
The degrowth doughnut’s digital software — which visualises how a city performs against ecological ceilings and social foundations — together with collaborative mapping and co-produced system diagrams, made the framework accessible to non-experts. The BDD encompasses both direct indicators (energy consumption, renewable energy use, CO2 emissions) and indirect ones (climate change denial, extent of green areas, biodiversity loss), capturing not just what cities emit, but how their cultures and governance structures shape ecological outcomes. Feedback from Croatian colleagues — the framework’s original developers — validated the approach internationally, and its incorporation into Budapest’s Climate City Contract in September 2024 can be considered as a notable science-policy result. Through DAISY, the initiative’s biodiversity focus is now deepening further, with indicator updates planned to cover ecological functions, species diversity, and nature connectivity.
The obstacles
Early scepticism and limited capacity within the Budapest Municipality slowed the initial phase of engagement. Technical challenges — especially sourcing local data and calibrating context-sensitive indicators — required persistent effort and iterative revision. Tensions arose around indicator selection, particularly in balancing ecological and social priorities, and in making technical outputs accessible to policy generalists. Time and resources for workshops were constrained, limiting the depth of engagement for some participants. Broader civic and departmental involvement beyond the core expert group has not yet been achieved. At the structural level, integrating a degrowth-oriented framework into a municipal administration shaped by conventional growth logic presents fundamental challenges that the process has identified but not yet resolved.
The transformation potential
The transformation potential
The BDD illustrates how an academic sustainability framework can, through careful co-creation and institutional anchoring, become a practical tool for urban policy transformation. Its incorporation into Budapest’s Climate City Contract — and its growing connection to biodiversity policy through DAISY — demonstrates real institutional uptake. The participatory methodology has shifted, the learning culture within the core group, modelling how complex trade-offs between ecological and social goals can be made visible and collectively negotiated. Looking ahead, the BDD has potential to inform Budapest’s Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan update, to be extended to the district or individual level, and to guide urban biodiversity strategies that connect climate neutrality with green infrastructure, species connectivity, and public ecological literacy. Its deepest transformative potential lies in establishing a shared language for urban sustainability that integrates what cities are for, not just how efficiently they function.
Desired future
The desired future is a Budapest that uses the Degrowth Doughnut not simply as a critique of growth-oriented development but as a practical framework for governing an ecologically sound and socially just city. Diversity—ecological, cultural and within the built environment—is treated as a source of resilience. Healthy streets and school streets become citywide standards, neighbourhood and community gardens form connected green networks, and riverfront and public-space initiatives bring nature, recreation and social support into everyday urban life.
Decision-making is explicitly guided by inclusion, fairness, participation, equity and ecological sustainability. These principles become visible across transport, housing, food and public space. Walking and cycling are safe and convenient, affordable public transport reduces car dependence, rail becomes a realistic alternative to short-haul flights, and schools and public spaces prioritise shade, biodiversity and low-impact design. Everyday needs can increasingly be met without relying on environmentally damaging or socially exclusionary systems.
Biodiversity restoration is integrated into the functioning of the city rather than treated as a separate environmental programme: urban waters recover, green spaces become more diverse and better managed, and species and habitat diversity increase. At the same time, universal access to affordable housing, clean air, health, education, mobility and culture forms the social foundation of the transition. Costs and benefits are distributed more fairly, while residents gain a stronger role in shaping the city’s future.
Potential transformative intervention mixes
Moving towards this future requires coordinated intervention bundles rather than isolated green projects. The proposed mix spans zero-waste systems, energy efficiency, water-sensitive ‘sponge city’ approaches, biodiversity restoration, sustainable mobility, fair housing regulation, sustainable food systems, green and transparent public procurement, community and civil-society support, socially progressive taxation and wider access to culture. These material interventions need to be combined with long-term sustainability education and participatory governance so that changes in infrastructure are accompanied by changes in institutions and everyday practices.
Institutional enabling conditions are equally important. Greater municipal autonomy, improved access to EU and municipal resources, stronger political leadership, better data and more meaningful social dialogue can create space for experimentation. Private-sector involvement can play a role where it is clearly aligned with public-interest and BDD objectives. Digital tools such as a city digital twin could help identify spillovers and improve decision-making, but only if they serve broader transformation rather than merely making the existing growth-oriented system more efficient.
The most transformative pathway therefore connects ecological restoration with housing, mobility, fiscal fairness and democratic governance. This could include rewilding urban waters and reducing paved surfaces; expanding and ecologically renovating municipal housing; regulating rents and discouraging greenfield development; introducing fairer local taxes and income-proportional fines; pricing parking and road use more realistically while investing revenues in green-blue infrastructure; and expanding walking, cycling and affordable public transport. Participatory structures, community budgets, neighbourhood spaces and transparent green procurement provide complementary institutional levers.
The crucial distinction is between interventions that merely ‘green’ the existing urban growth model and those that change its underlying priorities. The latter combine environmental improvements with redistribution, participation and structural changes in how urban resources, opportunities and decision-making power are shared.
