How to Access the CADS Tool

The Climate Action Decision Support (CADS) Tool is an open-source, browser-based platform for assessing the emissions and economic impacts of climate actions, building transparent scenarios, and communicating results to planners and decision-makers. The CADS Tool was developed by the Climate-4-CAST Project (2023-2026), funded by the EU Interreg Baltic Sea Region Programme.

There are three ways to get started with the CADS Tool. The right choice depends on your organisation’s technical capacity, data sovereignty requirements, and the level of support you need.

Choosing an Option

Option 1 — Hosted platform (cads.kausal.tech): Register directly at cads.kausal.tech and create an instance through the browser. No infrastructure setup is required. This is a quick way to get started and suits organisations that want to begin building their climate action model without technical deployment work or a procurement process.

Option 2 — Self-hosting: Deploy the open-source code on your own infrastructure. This option requires an IT team comfortable with containerised web applications, but gives your organisation full control over data residency and platform configuration.

Option 3 — Procuring a hosted instance: Engage a Software as a Service (SaaS) provider to operate a dedicated deployment on your behalf. The provider manages infrastructure, updates, and backups, while your organisation focuses on the climate action model. This option is well-suited to organisations that require a service agreement, dedicated resources, or procurement through a formal tender process.

You can find more detailed information about each option here.

Getting started

Once your instance is running — whether at cads.kausal.tech, on your own infrastructure, or through a provider — the Public Interface, Model Editor, and features described the CADS tool’s online user guide behave the same way, regardless of how the tool is deployed. Start with the Public Interface to understand what your city’s staff and decision-makers will see, or proceed directly to the Model Editor to begin building your climate action model.

Programme Manual Online

Choose