Through climate planning, a municipality can analyse its energy supply and recognise the room for manoeuvre in decision-making and the possibilities of action available to it to achieve energy and climate policy goals:

• A use of energy that is as rational as possible;
• Increased use of waste heat and renewable energy sources;
• The reduction of CO2 emissions.

The activities, which aim to address the energy issue on a municipal scale, will identify the greatest potential for energy savings and the use of renewable energy sources, with particular reference to spatial development.
The implementation of municipal climate planning is therefore appropriate if: there are waste incineration plants, water purification plants or energy-intensive industries in the municipality; the municipality has important sources of environmental heat located on site (e.g. usable aquifers or large areas of forest with high potential for using wood as an energy source); some areas of the municipality are connected or connectable to heat distribution networks and/or energy supply networks (district heating, natural gas).