Measuring to Evaluate Alternatives: The Carbon Footprint Calculator for Urban Planning of the Community of Madrid

This work is oriented to analyse the carbon footprint calculator for urban planning developed by the authors funded by the Community of Madrid. The starting point is the evolution of urban planning related to environmental problems that have resulted in current situation. Now it is needed to plan cities in a context of climate crisis. Planning with climate change criteria is especially important in the Community of Madrid, a hotspot of urban growth at the European level with a very unique dynamic, near doubling the artificial surfaces from 1990 to 2018, in less than 30 years, and without regional planning. The carbon footprint calculator consists of an assessment of the uses and activities to be developed in future planning that generate greenhouse gas emissions, as well as changes in land use that affect the soil’s sink capacity. Mitigation strategies (as self-generation capacity by renewable energies) are analysed for assessment and quantification where data is available. The carbon footprint calculator includes the derived and influential activities that should be included in the application for the approval of urban planning instruments, within the ordinary or simplified strategic environmental assessment procedures, in relation to the potential environmental impacts in terms of climate change. The carbon footprint calculator could help to measure different urban planning alternatives (alternative 0, no transformation and others) for the urban development or transformation, as in the application of a planning proposal is shown. Consequently, thanks to carbon footprint calculator it is possible to choose the lowest carbon emissions alternative among several and to make visible the crucial aspects that generate the most emissions at an early stage of urban development as it is a masterplan.