Supporting urban climate action through data sharing: the IPPCP white paper

How can sharing public and private data help cities build more reliable emissions inventories and monitor climate action? The Intelligent Private–Public Neutral Carbon Platform (IPPCP) pilot’s new white paper explores this question through practical applications and deployment lessons from Zaragoza and Ljubljana.

Developed within the European Data Space for Smart Communities (DS4SSCC) and running from May 2025 to August 2026, IPPCP explored how connecting emissions, energy and environmental data across organisations can support more informed urban management.

The white paper presents two approaches built on existing municipal infrastructure. In Zaragoza, the pilot extended the city’s data ecosystem to support more structured contributions from industry and other external data providers. In Ljubljana, it connected existing emissions-monitoring tools to a data-space layer, making selected energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, temperature and air quality data available under defined access conditions.

Alongside these implementations, the publication shares lessons on governance, interoperability and stakeholder participation. The pilots validated technical capabilities and data-sharing mechanisms in a pre-production environment, while benefits such as reduced manual work and faster reporting remain to be measured. Their experience highlights the importance of clear responsibilities, trusted cooperation and allowing providers to retain control over their source data.

For cities and communities exploring public–private data sharing for climate action, the white paper offers practical insights into the opportunities, implementation challenges and potential for replication across Europe.

📄 Read the full white paper to discover the pilot’s results and lessons here