What does a climate-neutral, livable city look like – and what concrete actions can help us get there? The new Climate Action Navigator (CAN) from HeiGIT (Heidelberg Institute for Geoinformation Technology) offers data-driven answers. This interactive online tool supports cities, NGOs, and community initiatives in identifying and addressing key areas for climate action – scientifically sound, locally adaptable and practical. The tool is funded by the Klaus Tschira Foundation with the aim of harnessing open geodata – such as OpenStreetMap – for effective climate protection.
Identifying challenges, taking action
By 2050, an estimated 70% of the world’s population will live in cities — in Europe, that number is already 75%. This makes it clear that urban areas play a key role in driving the transition toward greater climate protection. But how can we turn that knowledge into action?
The Climate Action Navigator (CAN) provides answers — offering insights much like an energy efficiency rating, but for whole neighborhoods, and across multiple dimensions of urban climate action. The dashboard highlights where walking and cycling infrastructure needs improvement, which districts have high heating emissions, and where land consumption is becoming a concern.
The CAN brings together a range of assessment tools focused on topics such as active mobility, heating emissions, and land use. It is based on open data sources such as OpenStreetMap, remote sensing data and census data. These data serve as the foundation for spatial analyses that enable cities, planners, NGOs, and local initiatives to develop targeted and effective climate strategies.
“To build climate-resilient cities, we need shared perspectives, reliable data, and real-world experience. With the Climate Action Navigator, we want to bring together technical expertise and local knowledge to help cities rethink infrastructure and make it fit for the future,” - says Kirsten von Elverfeldt, Community engagement manager.
Three tools for one goal: targeted climate action
The first version of the dashboard includes three assessment tools:
hiWalk and hiBike assess how walkable and bike-friendly a city is. hiWalk analyzes factors such as the type of pathways (e.g., pedestrian zones or shared traffic), surface quality, and elevation changes. This helps determine how safe, comfortable, and accessible the infrastructure is for pedestrians. hiBike focuses on cycling infrastructure and also takes into account potential risk areas — including the risk of “dooring,” i.e. the danger of suddenly opening car doors alongside parked cars. Both tools highlight where existing infrastructure is already safe and user-friendly — and where there is room for improvement.
In Berlin, for example, hiWalk data shows that districts with more designated pedestrian routes, such as Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, have significantly higher levels of foot traffic compared to districts like Spandau.
Heating Emissions analyzes CO₂ emissions from residential heating using data from the 2022 German national census. It incorporates factors such as building age, energy source, and living space per person. This allows not only for visualizing emission hotspots, but also for identifying potential savings through renovations or a switch to renewable heating systems.
More tools — focusing on traffic emissions, land consumption, or local CO₂ budgets — are currently in development.
Shaping cities together: co-creation as a guiding principle
The development of CAN is rooted in close collaboration with local partners — because sustainable urban transformation requires practical knowledge just as much as a solid data foundation. Our indicators are not defined “from above”, but developed together with municipal experts, civil society organizations or transport initiatives. For example, the hiBike tool was developed together with Radlobby Austria (cycling advocacy group) to systematically record real danger spots in the cycling network. Each indicator is geared towards specific local challenges and can be flexibly adapted.
Comment from our partners:
“As a cycling advocacy group, we need reliable data and clear assessments to develop and back up targeted demands — it’s the only way the mobility transition can succeed. hiBike opens up many new possibilities for us.”
– Roland Romano, a spokesperson from Radlobby Austria.
„In Lagos, there are neighborhoods that hardly see any cars - the context is different. Thanks to co-creation, HeiGIT, LUDI, and other partners have been able to work together to develop indicators that provide a more realistic view of local mobility needs in West African cities, like Lagos.”
– Olamide Udoma-Ejorh, Direktor von LUDI, Lagos Urban Development Initiative.
“The added value for PLANUM lies in the interdisciplinary design of the decision-making tool: Our many years of experience in transport planning and in research projects in the field of active mobility flow directly into the development - this makes HiWalk particularly sound.”
– Marie-Therese Fallast, PLANUM Fallast & Partner, Graz.“
Online Event: Discover CAN & Join the Conversation
Join us on June 5 at 2:00 PM (CEST) to to learn more about the full potential of the Climate Action Navigator, concrete application examples and opportunities for cooperation.
Register now at: Climate Action Navigator Launch
Climate Action Navigator: Climate Action
Video: Bikeability
Contact at HeiGIT (Heidelberg Institute for Geoinformation Technology)
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kirsten Von Elverfeldt
kirsten.vonelverfeldt@heigit.org
About HeiGIT gGmbH:
HeiGIT (Heidelberg Institute for Geoinformation Technology) performs applied research relating to geographic information. Results and data are made freely available for the benefit of the environment and society through stakeholders such as researchers and aid organizations & associations.
The core foci of HeiGIT range from supporting humanitarian missions with customized geodata, to developing intelligent routing solutions for disasters or heatwaves. HeiGIT also implements innovative methods from the fields of spatial data processing and machine learning to analyze, enrich, and visualize geodata (e.g. OpenStreetMap data), as well as offering practical data analysis for climate protection initiatives.
HeiGIT gGmbH was founded in 2019 as an affiliated institute of Heidelberg University, with core funding from the Klaus Tschira Foundation.