An Economic Model That Moves Beyond G.D.P.

This article is part of a Women and Leadership special report highlighting the work by women around the world addressing climate change.

Growing up watching TV images of oil spills, ozone depletion and famine, Kate Raworth said she was determined to study economics to help end poverty and environmental destruction.

But while earning degrees at Oxford University, she became frustrated that planetary well-being was considered tangential to economic theory, which envisioned progress as an endlessly rising arrow of gross domestic product.

Ms. Raworth likens it to an airplane that can never be allowed to land. To ensure it continuously climbs, we must desperately tap dwindling fuel sources and toss things like environmental protections out the windows.

So Ms. Raworth redrew an economic model that looks like a doughnut. The doughy ring represents a system in which humans and nature thrive. The goal is to let no one fall into the hole, where they lack essentials like food, housing, health care and education.

The system also should not overshoot the limits of the outer crust, damaging the Earth through climate change, biodiversity loss, air pollution and more. Since she published her book “Doughnut Economics” in 2017 and co-founded the Doughnut Economics Action Lab, she said more than 50 cities, municipalities and governments had written this model into their strategies.

Ms. Raworth, 53, discussed her model in a video interview earlier this month. The following conversation has been edited and condensed.