In recent years, many local and regional authorities have set ambitious climate neutrality targets and are actively implementing the necessary transformations in energy and mobility to achieve these goals. Despite operating within various overarching framework conditions, these authorities play a crucial role in translating national and European climate targets into practical actions. They have control over spatial developments within their jurisdictions and often hold the legal mandate to develop and enforce spatial development plans. These plans outline future settlement and economic development while setting restrictions on land use. Given the strong correlation between spatial structures, energy demand and supply, and mobility patterns, spatial planning serves as a valuable tool for municipalities to drive crucial initiatives for addressing climate change and achieving net-zero targets.

The LIFE project IN-PLAN specifically focuses on spatial planning, addressing how to further integrate climate and energy aspects to accelerate local decarbonisation efforts. The IN-PLAN Practice serves as a guideline for implementing integrated spatial planning aimed at achieving climate neutrality. It introduces the concept of integrated spatial planning and explains how different planning systems across Europe offer varying possibilities for action.

Chapter Two presents the most important topics for climate action to be integrated into spatial plans, along with an overview of possible interventions and good practice examples. These focus areas include Climate Adaptation, Sustainable Mobility, and Renewable Energy. The chapter concludes with the IN-PLAN Checklist, which can be applied to each spatial plan to ensure comprehensive steps towards climate neutrality are taken.

Chapter Three provides a comprehensive overview of a generic integrated planning process, addressing key questions such as: What steps need to be taken? Which stakeholders need to be included? Each step of the process is illustrated with good practice projects and helpful tools that can be applied. A more extensive collection of examples and tools can be found in the Annex of the document.