Doughnut Data Portraits: A Methodological Guide
Guidelines and approaches to 'downscale' the Doughnut by creating a Data Portrait (or City Portrait) for your place
Version 2.3 (April 2025)
📢 Now translated into French, Spanish, German and Brazilian Portuguese
* Cet outil est également disponible en français comme Google Doc ou comme PDF (et avec une feuille de calcul supplémentaire) *
* Esta herramienta también está disponible en español como Google Doc o como PDF (y con hoja de cálculo complementaria). *
* Dieses Tool ist auch auf Deutsch als Google Doc oder als PDF (und mit unterstĂĽtzender Tabelle) verfĂĽgbar. *
* Esta ferramenta tambĂ©m está disponĂvel em portuguĂŞs como Google Doc ou como PDF (e com planilha suplementar). *
Overview
Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL) has created a set of Doughnut Unrolled tools that unroll the Doughnut into four 'lenses' that consider the interplay between local aspirations and global responsibilities in your place – both socially and ecologically – and identify possible entry-points for transformative action.
This tool - Data Portrait of Place - is a handbook of approaches and useful resources for collecting locally relevant, data-led targets and indicators to create a holistic snapshot or a 'portrait' of your place's performance across each of the four lenses. For a collection of useful examples and results from the growing number of places that have already begun using the Data Portrait as an input to transformative action, see the accompanying Downscaling the Doughnut: Data Portraits in Action tool.
For an overview, watch the 18-min video with Andrew Fanning, DEAL's Research & Data Analysis Lead, introducing the Data Portrait methodological guide (recorded in July 2023 as part of this series of videos presenting Doughnut Economics concepts and practice). You can also access his presentation slides online using Google slides, or download the PowerPoint presentation.
The Data Portrait of Place handbook is available as a Google Doc or as a PDF (also available to download below, with accompanying Supplementary spreadsheet).
Why use this tool?
The Data Portrait of Place handbook provides guidance and useful resources for you to create a holistic data-led snapshot of what it means for your place to thrive while helping to bring humanity into the Doughnut.
It invites you to collect and compare desired outcomes versus current performance of your place using available data, offering a 'portrait' to discuss complex issues, which can keep evolving as more data is made available over time.
DEAL encourages you to use this data-led tool together with the Community Portrait of Place tool, which provides a complementary set of participatory workshop materials that can be used to invite the people of your place to share their knowledge, ideas, lived-experience and aspirations. Together, these tools draw upon both data and other diverse contributions to build a rich, multi-layered and holistic portrait of your place.
Important note: If you wish to use these tools as part of your consultancy or professional advisory services for others, then we require that you follow DEAL's policy for consultancies and professional advisors.
Feedback
Healthy living systems rely on good feedback loops and we invite your comments, reflections and suggestion from using this tool to help us iterate and evolve for future versions.
You can do this in three ways:
- Leave a comment in the section below called Join the conversation. The benefit of this approach is that everyone can see and benefit from what you share.
- Share detailed comments and suggestions in this dedicated Data Portrait of Place online collaborative feedback document.
- Contact the DEAL Team directly via the contact form, choosing the category 'Tools and Stories'.
Acknowledgements
The Doughnut Unrolled methodology was conceptualised by Kate Raworth of Doughnut Economics Action Lab and Janine Benyus of Biomimicry 3.8, and this methodological handbook was written by Andrew Fanning, Kate Raworth, Olya Krestyaninova, and Fredrik Eriksson, with valuable contributions from Rob Shorter, Leonora Grcheva, and Ruurd Priester from Doughnut Economics Action Lab. We are so very grateful to the many, diverse contributors to this tool and earlier versions. Please see the extended acknowledgements section within the handbook for additional details.
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Glasgow Engaging Multi-Sector Stakeholders
Glasgow City Portrait workshop with multi-sector stakeholders
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Neighbourhood Doughnut Portrait Launch
We're excited to introduce you to the first Neighbourhood Doughnut Portrait, painted by many people together in Ladywood
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Launching our Data Portrait as an exhibition
A platform for lots of conversations with people and expanding our network in Minato Ward.
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Doughnut Data Portraits in global South contexts
A co-creative process to reflect global South priorities and interests
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Glasgow and Barcelona share their Data Portraits
As part of a peer-to-peer gathering organised by DEAL, two research teams shared their evolving Data Portraits
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Prosperity indicators & the Doughnut portrait
Research question "How does the Doughnut portrait differ from previous prosperity indicator initiatives (if at all)?"
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Transforming places with the Doughnut - webinar 2
Watch the recording of two local governments working with Doughnut Economics in Brussels, Belgium and Nanaimo, Canada
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Transforming places with DE - webinar 1
Hearing from community-led initiatives in Leeds, UK and Melbourne, Australia
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Member
Carra Santos
Bath, BANES, UK.
With 15+ years of experience across climate, health, enterprise, design and innovation, I bring boundary-spanning skills to social and behavioural change projects - bridging disciplines, sectors, and perspectives to create systems-aware, people-centred strategies. By blending behavioural insight, social theory, systems thinking, and design-led methods, I help policy, development, and creative professionals build strategies and communications that are grounded in lived experience and connected thinking. I began exploring Doughnut Economics around 2017, attending events from 2019, and becoming a DEAL community member on its launch in 2020. My interest in economics increased during my 2021 'Sustainable Development in Practice' Masters dissertation on narrative framing and communication of degrowth practices to UK business leaders, which examined the difference between degrowth, growth-agnostic and growth-led perspectives. I started the Doughnut Economics group in Bath, UK in 2022 which evolved into Collaborative Bath in 2024, which I ran until May 2025. I continue to support it ad hoc, and a number of councils, universities and enterprises with local outreach and engagement. Email me or join me on LinkedIn.
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Member
Richard James MacCowan
Founder of Biomimicry Innovation Lab. Keynote speaker, Workshop faciltator, Designer, Urbanist, Behavioural economics, Systems-thinking, Complexity Science. Richard loves to explore fresh ideas and concepts and is ever curious about the environment around him. He is an award-winning designer and has worked around the world in cities, manufacturing, food systems and product design. Richard’s passion is developing new models of innovation to reduce costs, improve efficiency and resilience in the design and manufacturing process. He taught at some of the top design schools in the world: from The Royal College of Art (UK); The Pratt Institute (USA); Vellore Institute of Technology (India); and the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary). Richard is also the founder of the non-profit Biomimicry UK, and the CEO of an equine technology startup, Smart Stable Limited. He combines this with extensive research development with international collaborators.
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Member
Thomas Arnold
Bruxelles, RĂ©gion de Bruxelles-Capitale, Belgium
Active Senior, DG Research and Innovation, European Commission
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Member
Andrew Fanning
Cádiz, Spain
Data Analysis & Research Lead at DEAL. I'm interested in ways to 'translate' the global Doughnut to smaller scales, from neighbourhood to nation (and beyond). Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Leeds. Contact me by going to the DEAL contact form, and select 'Research & Data Analysis'.
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Member
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Rob Shorter
London, England, United Kingdom
Communities & Art Lead at DEAL | Steward of the global community of grassroots organisers using Doughnut Economics | Workshop facilitator | DEAL Team tool designer | Collective imagination practitioner | Game designer | Musician
