A snapshot of California, 2025
The California Doughnut
California's economy is more than its GDP. The Doughnut reveals what traditional economic metrics miss.
Published in November 2025, the California Doughnut is the first state-level adaptation of Kate Raworth's Doughnut Economics framework. CalDEC built it over two years of research with academic, government, and community partners, examining 42 indicators across 21 dimensions of social wellbeing and ecological health. Its purpose: to give California a compass for an economy that meets everyone's needs within the limits of the planet.
The Doughnut.
Click any wedge to see where California stands on that dimension.
Click a wedge to explore.
Each wedge is one of California's 21 dimensions. Tap any to see the headline stat, framing from the report, the policy spotlight, and the justice lens.
Policy spotlight
Justice lens
Source: The California Doughnut Snapshot and Report (Aritza, A. and Kraus-Polk, J. et al., 2025), used under CC-BY 4.0.
How CalDEC built this.
CalDEC built the California Doughnut over two years of research, in collaboration with academic, government, and community partners across the state. The team considered more than 200 candidate indicators and selected 42 representative ones across 21 categories: 24 social indicators measuring whether Californians have what they need, and 18 ecological indicators measuring whether our economic activity is staying within Earth's limits.
Around half of the indicators draw from government sources, with the rest from NGO reports and peer-reviewed academic work.
Regional doughnuts.
The framework scales. Several California cities are building their own.
San Jose
Lead: Lisa Charpontier
Working with the Office of Sustainability on housing and air-quality indicators.
Open →
San Diego
Lead: TBC
Coastal Southern California Doughnut group taking shape.
Open →
San Francisco
Lead: Kyle Ciullo
Civic-tech partnership translating budget allocations into Doughnut categories.
Open →
Santa Cruz
Lead: Amelia Eichel
Coastal county piloting an ecological-ceiling assessment with marine focus.
Open →
San Mateo
Lead: Kyle Ciullo
County-level partnership focused on social equity and housing affordability.
Open →
Placer
Lead: TBC
Sierra Nevada foothills Doughnut group in early formation.
Open →
Petaluma
Lead: Amelia Eichel
Small-city pilot integrating the Doughnut into the General Plan update.
Open →
Working on a Doughnut for your city? Get in touch →
Get involved.
Changing the dominant economic paradigm will take a community. There is a place for everyone to contribute meaningfully.
Tell us how you'd like to help