Almost 300 policy objectives have been identified at five levels of government: international, European, national, provincial and municipal. These objectives are categorised into nine policy areas based on the DMI’s Blueprint for Smart Sustainable Urbanisation. The policy areas range from health and well-being to energy, climate and economic vitality. The extensive list of analysed documents includes the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the Climate Agreement and municipal environmental visions.

To make these ambitions transparent and analysable, the ambition matrix was developed. This tool can be filtered by theme, sub-theme and scale level(s), making it possible to examine how an ambition plays out at different scale levels. For instance, the tool reveals that only nine ambitions recur at all scale levels, from international to municipal.

The methodology and results were developed in collaboration with a focus group comprising participants from the municipalities of Helmond and Edam-Volendam, the province of South Holland, and the ministries of Infrastructure and Water Management and the Interior and Kingdom Relations.

This tool is available free of charge through the DMI PDX marketplace and can also be viewed here.