Municipal Climate Protection

It all began in Heidelberg...

IFEU has been active in municipal climate protection since the late 1980's. IFEU's focus has been on the development of mitigation strategies and concepts for municipalities and regions, energy management in public buildings, energy services that save primary energy as well as CO₂ accounting and creating a municipal climate protection benchmark.

An initial milestone was the 1992 Heidelberg CO₂ reduction concept. This strategy was developed in order to reduce greenhouse gases for the first time in all sectors of a city. Since then, IFEU has further developed its procedure for concept creation. Concepts are and were developed based on proven elements e.g. an assessment of the regional value using energy efficiency measures and the use of renewable energies. Existing concept contents have been continuously improved and adapted for municipal use (e.g. the grid for climate protection measures). A core element for the concept development has always been the extensive involvement of key stakeholders in the city.

The experiences working with municipalities plays into IFEU's overall activities on local climate protection. Thus, IFEU is active in the field of CO₂ accounting, climate protection benchmark and in the development of support programs for the implementation of mitigation measures. Target groups include consumers and suppliers as well as municipalities, states and the federal government.

More information about our current local climate protection projects can be found here:

• "Change Agents": Advanced training of climate protection managers (in German)
  
• Climate protection concepts for cities and regions
  
• Framework of the Masterplan "100 % Climate Change Mitigation in Heidelberg"
  
• District climate protection coaching
  
• The structure of the energy transition in local authorities: development of standardised instruments for carrying out a balance assessment, establishing potential and developing scenarios (climate protection planner)
  
• Climate protection benchmark, local government climate partnership
  
• Climate protection guide for municipalities
  
• Scientifically overseeing the development of the national climate change initiative
  
• Exergetic evaluation of municipal energy systems
  
• Climate protection concepts for German federal states (in German; pdf 3.1 MB)