Environmental planning deals with environmental aspects of spatial planning as a whole and makes expert contributions in environmental protection based on the precautionary principle. The complex interrelations between causes and other issues are determined, objectives for protecting, maintaining, cleaning up and developing the environment are developed and respective measures implemented.

An important core area of environmental planning activities is the assessment of possible environmental impacts of planning strategies and planned projects, e.g. in the course of a strategic environmental assessment or an environmental impact assessment. In this context we developed a theoretical concept for strategic planning and testing methods at IRUB and created hand-on possibilities for application in planning methods and planning tools. These include energy footprint, sustainable process index (SPI) as well as the process network synthesis (PNS).

In addition, we are working on the further development of planning instruments and the respective legal framework.

Environmental Impact Assessments

These instruments of environmental planning are suitable to encourage social learning in the planning processes and thus contribute to the planning quality.

Ecological Footprint, SPI and PNS

The ecological footprint is a planning and evaluation method, which enables to determine the pressure society exerts on the environment. It informs you how much area of land is used for different human activities and compares it to the amount of land available on a local, regional, national or global level.

Green Infrastructure

“Green Infrastructure“ can be described as a planned grid of green and open spaces, which fulfil different functions.