A meta-analysis of different studies has shown that significant climate protection potentials exist in the fields of intelligent buildings, traffic optimization, production systems, and dematerialization, which can be made accessible by using IT-Solutions.

Within this context, the expert workshop "IT for Climate Protection" was held on 24 October 2014 in the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB). The goal of the workshop was to use expert opinions to evaluate how IT solutions analyzed in the scientific literature can contribute to climate protection, which new solutions should be developed, and which barriers prevent the achieving of climate protection potentials. Workshop participants discussed the key topics of industry, mobility, and smart homes in three working groups.

The workshop was organized on the basis of an analysis of the climate protection potentials and their impediments which has been conducted by a consortium consisting of Ecologic Institute, Arepo Consult, IFEU and Öko-Institut on behalf of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB). The insights gained during the workshop were used by the hosting institutions to plan the next steps and to develop possible focal points related to the different solution possibilities within the NKI.