Background Over the last 15 years, global warming and climate changes have become a reality which has been accompanied by many negative phenomena. These effects have been felt throughout urban areas where the problems include adverse effects on drinking water supplies and propagation of infectious diseases as well as extreme weather conditions such as storms, floods and excessive heat waves. More than 58% of the Slovakian population live in urban areas and this figure increases to almost 80% in the EU as a whole. Urban planning in Member States therefore needs to adapt policies and actions to mitigate the consequences of global warming. Objectives The goal of this LIFE-Environment project was to develop and implement strategic urban planning tools, tailored to Slovakian circumstances, that used proven sustainable development indicators to assess the ecological footprint of 10 different cities in Slovakia. Outcomes from the project aimed to strengthen cooperation between urban areas on tackling climate change issues and increase awareness among politicians, decision makers and the general public about environmental and sustainable development (SD) issues in urban areas. Results All of the project’s planned objectives were achieved, in at least part, and led to the: - adaptation of the European Common Indicators (ECI) methodology to Slovak conditions, plus its verification in selected Slovakian cities; - the design and implementation of new and innovative ecological footprint calculations; - the establishment of a network of sustainable cities; and - awareness-raising on environment and SD topics including the EU Sustainable Development Strategy, the Directive on Strategic Environmental Assessment and practical planning techniques for monitoring environmental impacts such as “micro-climate function coefficients”. The innovative set of urban SD indicators produced by the project integrated four core pillars of sustainability (environment, social, economic and institutional) within an urban planning framework that proved to be both productive and popular across Slovakian cities, which were keen to cooperate with each other during and after the LIFE project activities. The SD indicator set generated useful data on: traffic situations and citizen mobility; sustainable urban design and sustainable construction methods; environment quality, sustainable land use and biodiversity; city contributions to global climate change; socio-economic conditions and attractiveness of the city; and a separate theme was dedicated to evaluating effectiveness of urban management processes. An additional indicator evaluating landscape impact was also incorporated within the LIFE funded activities. Application of the full ecological footprint methodology proved to be challenging and was verified by two Slovak cities (Piešťany and Bratislava’s Karlova Ves district), where the resulting mitigation of climate change /global warming will help improve quality of life, particularly via the increased amount of urban vegetation. These results are expected to multiply as the methodology becomes more widely used by Ministry of the Environment (MoE) staff in the Slovak National Implementation Plan, particularly with regard to the EU Thematic Strategy on the Urban Environment. The LIFE project has helped to build good working relations between the Slovakian public sector and environmental NGOs, which in itself represents a good practice feature of sustainable development principles. These positive relations can be evidenced by MoE’s invitation for the LIFE beneficiary to become a member of one of its national working groups. Such a position will help sustain and strengthen the important and beneficial work that this LIFE Environment project has delivered. Further information on the project can be found in the project's layman report (see "Read more" section).