Shaping Europe’s Future: Join the EU Coalition for Integrated Spatial Planning and Sustainable Growth

Why an EU Coalition group?

The integration of spatial planning in energy, climate, and mobility plans at local and regional levels has many benefits in terms of sustainability and efficiency. Spatial planning plays a crucial role in the implementation of climate change mitigation measures. Through strategic and sustainable planning, cities and regions can take effective action to combat climate change and mitigate its impacts. Integrated spatial planning offers numerous levers to significantly support the phase-out of fossil fuels. For example, reducing reliance on individual motorized transportation, reducing land consumption, and creating incentives for energy-efficient buildings and infrastructure.

The IN-PLAN Practice, which is to be elaborated in the course of the IN-PLAN project, is meant to provide municipalities, counties and other regional authorities with a guidebook on how to (further) integrate climate mitigation and adaptation aspects into spatial planning processes and other types of planning tools, such as mobility, infrastructure, etc. with the aim to effectively implement a municipality’s sustainable energy and climate vision (as expressed in a SECAP or SUMP for instance) and to foster an institutionalized collaboration between different departments as well as stakeholders on all levels. The IN-PLAN Practice is indeed an innovative instrument that empowers local and regional authorities to develop, implement, and monitor ambitious energy and climate plans and targets as well as their integration into planning processes both vertically (different levels of governance) and horizontally (across different sectors).

However, to share these benefits and this tool with local and regional authorities, there is a need to create a coalition that actively advocates for the integration of spatial planning into other local plans. Along with national coalition groups set up by IN-PLAN partners and their Lighthouses, this advocacy activity has to be implemented also at a higher reach: the European Union.

Setting up national and EU coalitions means advocating for the IN-PLAN Practice to be further implemented and applied in Europe. Therefore, the EU coalition aims to reach three main objectives:

• To explain what integrated planning is, and how it can benefit public authorities while ensuring the sustainability of Energy & Climate plans;
• To advocate for integrated planning at both the EU policy level (EC, MEPs, think tanks, NGO, etc.) and national/local level (peer-sharing, virtuous/fruitful practices);
• To disseminate the IN-PLAN Practice and policy recommendations resulting from our lighthouses’ and pilots’ examples.

Your involvement

The EU coalition aims to actively advocate for the integration of spatial planning into sustainable energy, climate, and mobility plans at the local level. By joining this coalition, you will get: 

• Priority access to key project content, including the IN-PLAN Practice, an innovative instrument that empowers local and regional authorities to develop, implement, and monitor ambitious energy and climate plans and targets as well as their integration into planning processes; 
• Visibility, as your organization logo and name will be displayed during the EU Coalition events, as well as in all the publications related to the coalition’s work; 
• Recognition of your activity in advocating for spatial planning at the EU level;  
• News and updates on IN-PLAN activities, tools, and useful material; 
• Invitation to IN-PLAN events, both online and onsite. 

Join the IN-PLAN EU Coalition Group!

To formalize your interest in integrated spatial planning and to receive updates on the IN-PLAN outputs and events, don’t forget to fill in the following survey:

If you need further information or guidance, please feel free to reach out to Irene Biancani at irene.biancani@fedarene.org, or Jeremy Clero at jeremy@ieecp.org.