Doughnut Data Portraits: A Methodological Guide

Guidelines and approaches to 'downscale' the Doughnut by creating a Data Portrait (or City Portrait) for your place

Posted by the DEAL Team February, 18, 2022 101 likes

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 unterstützender Tabelle) verfügbar. *

* Esta ferramenta também está disponível em português 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.

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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.

A preview of the Data Portrait of Place handbook

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.