Cities across Europe are moving from pilot projects to city-wide transformation. To support that journey, the UP2030 consortium has released two practical, free-to-use resources: the Green Finance (GF) Guide and the Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) Guide. Co-developed by the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) together with the UP2030 pilot cities, these guides help municipal teams identify viable financing options, learn from case examples and choose the right economic evaluation tools for their projects, so ideas can turn into investable, scalable action.

The purpose of these guides

City teams shed light to two key hurdles: (1) building a strong, evidence-based business case for interventions, and (2) navigating the evolving landscape of public, private, and blended finance. The CBA and GF Guides respond directly to those needs, consolidating methods, instruments, and real-world examples in one place and supporting understanding and guiding to cities to diverse solutions.

Introducing the guides

Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) Guide
Follows a simple questionnaire through which the Guide recommends First-Best and Second-Best CBA tools based on a project’s sector, desired co-benefits and staff/budget capacity, covering 20 vetted, open-access CBA tools across transport, buildings, energy, waste, urban nature, and more. The 20 selected tools are presented in a summary document with brief, high-level overviews to support quick comparison; the file will be available on the website.

Green Finance (GF) Guide
A searchable database of the financing landscape tailored to municipal climate action. It includes 100+ financial instruments, 70+ case studies, 44 financing and technical-assistance programmes and a primer on key stakeholder types and blending strategies. With filters, cities can quickly shortlist relevant options, solutions can be narrowed down according to sector, climate objective (mitigation/adaptation), financing instrument characterisation (modality, source of finance, maturity of instrument etc.), eligibility for EU member states among others.

Methodology (in brief)

• CBA Guide: Content is based on a literature review of publicly available CBA tools. The recommendation algorithm applies a scoring system, assigning higher scores to tools that better match user-selected criteria. The Guide also provides links to relevant data sources, user guides, and case studies to support application.
• GF Guide: The databases were compiled from publicly available sources, synthesising multiple catalogues, tools, and studies—including the NetZeroCities Finance Guidance Tool and the Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance’s Financial Instruments Toolkit—alongside materials from the NAP Global Network, the EEA, the World Bank, and others. Collection, classification, and analysis were conducted by GGGI. Common typologies and filters were developed to ensure consistency, comparability, and practical usability.

Co-developed with cities

Built on a structured needs assessment—targeted workshops and surveys across the UP2030 pilot cities—the guides translate city feedback. Between April and May 2025, we held focused sessions with ten European UP2030 cities to test and refine both guides. Their feedbacks were used to strengthened user flow and filtering logic.

How to access the guides

Visit the Urban Planning for 2030 Service Platform:
https://urbanplanningfor2030.eu/tools

Both tools will be fully functional by year-end 2025 as part of the Platform’s Tools section. The user guides are available for both guides and help understanding and navigating the tools.

Who should use them?

• City project teams looking to prioritise interventions, estimate impacts, and evaluate financing options.
• Finance and budget officers exploring to blend or substitute of municipal revenues and budget with grants, loans, bonds, or results-based approaches.
• Strategy, planning and climate units integrating finance and CBA thinking into climate city contracts, investment plans, and sector roadmaps.

What’s next

The guides will continue to evolve on the Service Platform with improved navigation, filters across modules, and learning materials to support replication beyond the UP2030 pilot cities.

Contact

Diana Kupper, e-mail: diana.kupper@gggi.org

Stelios Grafakos, e-mail: stelios.grafakos@gggi.org