DEAL Comes to Loughborough Business School

As the first event in Loughborough Business School’s ‘Economics Conference Series’, undergraduate and postgraduate students were joined virtually by Carolina Escobar-Tello, the School’s & Education Lead at Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL) for an interactive afternoon exploring distributive and regenerative business. Co-created by Daisy Hainsworth, the Economics Department School Representative, with the support of the Loughborough Business School Student Experience team, Rachael Mabe and Ruth Cufflin, the event stemmed out of student feedback of wanting to learn more about environmental economics, and Daisy – having read the ‘Doughnut Economics’ book during sixth form – thought DEAL would be the perfect organisation to collaborate with. The event was also supported by Economics lecturers, Dr Allyson King, Dr Dawid Trzeciakiewicz, and Professor Ali Choudhary, who were thrilled to see Economics students showing real initiative and passion for enhancing their subject knowledge and application skills. 

The session not only provided an insight into Kate Raworth's model of 'Doughnut Economics' and why it is needed in our ever-evolving world (both environmentally and socially) but also gave students the opportunity to develop key employability skills including team working, communication and business awareness. They generated creative solutions (and assessed the potential barriers) for organisations when aiming to be "within the doughnut" and achieve environmental and social stability, including Loughborough University itself!

Working in teams, students engaged in a workshop-style activity, using the ‘Doughnut Design for Business’ tool (Doughnut Design for Business - Core Tool | DEAL), and a summary document, to aid their understanding of the journey into the deep design of business itself – explored through the Purpose, Networks, Governance, Ownership, and Finance of any business. Key take aways from the session were that every business can take steps to redesign their core activities to become distributive and regenerative, but that finance is often the barrier that most companies may face when trying to achieve this. Students enjoyed doughnuts to celebrate the occasion and were given a certificate of participation to recognise their engagement in the event and their dedication to learning more about sustainable business practices.

Alarice Debrah, a student who attended the event, said: “Attending the Sustainable and Regenerative Business workshop, hosted by Loughborough Business School and Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL), was an eye-opening experience for me. The interactive format allowed me to develop critical skills in teamwork, problem-solving, and sustainable business thinking. This event not only deepened my understanding of transformative practices like Doughnut Economics but also empowered me to approach future challenges with a sustainability-first mindset.”

This event aligns with Loughborough Business School’s ethos to “Progress with Purpose” and is hopefully the first of many collaborations between the school and DEAL.