How to use the Donut Environmental Toolkit: Using the OAUK National Conference as an example

For this year’s National Conference, we’re using the OAUK Donut Event Toolkit to improve the event’s accessibility and sustainability. We’re using the toolkit at various stages of planning and publishing the results to show you how you can use it.

The Donut Toolkit takes the form of a three-page survey that produces everything needed to assess an events profile against the Green Events Code, as well as providing additional accessibility and social value outputs for local authorities. The toolkit can be integrated at any point in the event planning process. Find out more about the Donut Toolkit here.

Initial Results

First, let’s have a look at the results from the first time we filled in the survey in the early stages of planning the conference.

We’ve got 5 areas where we’re displaying good practice, 6 areas that we should consider reviewing and 2 areas where we’re advised to make changes. Let’s talk about the red areas:

Water

Whilst we’re encouraging delegates to bring water bottles, we don’t have a set water conservation/saving plan in place. We need to clarify the signposting around water refills with the venue and we’re not going to be recording water use. We’ve taken these decisions because there’s very little water usage at the conference outside of drinking water and the plumbing for the toilets. We’re encouraging audience members to bring water bottles but this doesn’t equate to a set ‘conservation/saving plan’.

Energy

This is mostly because we’re not currently planning on monitoring, measuring, or reducing the conferences energy consumption. Further clarification is needed about the power tariff that the venue uses, which might yet change the colour of that segment.

So having filled out just three pages of questions, we’ve got a clear idea of what we are doing well and where we need to focus our energies.

The to-do list

In section 1 of the toolkit (that populates the colours of the inner ring) we need to clarify the venue’s provisions on-site for disabled staff.

On our own end, we need to action:

• If there’s a dedicated space for access information at the conference, outside of our front of house check-in point
• Signage designed for audiences with access needs
• Designating which areas of the venue we’re using as our ‘backstage’ and then
  • creating a site crew access plan

In section 2 of the toolkit (that populates the colours of the outer ring) we need to clarify with the venue:

• What type of power tariff the venue is on
• Water signposting at the venue
• Their policy on selling single use products on-site
• If food waste will be separated for composting

Once we’ve actioned the above changes and clarified with the venue, we’ll update the toolkit and see if any of our areas have improved.

Long-term thinking

The toolkit has also given us some areas of consideration that we won’t be able to action in time for February’s conference. These are: 

• Undertaking consultation with D/deaf and disabled delegates in the conference planning stage 
• Using these consultations to inform our access plans from a lived experience perspective 
• How might we measure the energy usage of the conference 
• How might we measure carbon emissions of the conference 
• How might we measure water usage

Using the OAUK Donut Toolkit, we’ve been able to give ourselves a clear plan for not only improving this sustainability and accessibility of this conference, but to think  longer term about future conferences as well.

Download the Toolkit

You can download the toolkit to use for planning your events here. For OAUK members, you can also watch our webinar from February 2024 where the creator of the toolkit, Andrew Lansley, talks you through how to fill it in here.