A "foodshed" represents the geographic region that produces food for a particular population. Buying food grown in your local foodshed can help to reduce the negative environmental impacts caused by the modern food system as locally grown foods have a shorter distance to travel from where they are grown and distributed. This distance reduces the amount of energy used to transport the food and produces fewer greenhouse gases. In addition, producing food locally can help reduce the biodiversity loss associated with large-scale farming operations that can disrupt native vegetation, such as wetlands.

Mapping resources in a community are essential for effective natural and cultural resource protection and planning. Marin County's Countywide Plan has used GIS mapping to locate environmental corridors, vegetation types, special status species, wetlands, watersheds, baylands, protected agriculture lands, mineral resources, and treasured beaches. While many communities use maps in the development of their comprehensive plan to guide future growth, they seldom attach these maps and reference them throughout their description of goals, objectives, and implementation measures as Marin County successfully has.

The City of Davis, California is considered a progressive college town that consistently ranks among the top places in the country to live. Their farmers market is both a centerpiece of today's bustling downtown and a link to Davis' deep agricultural roots. Building on 40 years of land use policy actions and recognizing that urban sprawl was the greatest threat to farmland in California's Great Central Valley; Davis adopted the first farmland mitigation program in the country in 1995. With thousands of acres of prime farmland permanently protected, Davis has demonstrated that farmland conservation is viable and supports a high quality of life.

California's Central Valley is a region with moderate temperatures and fertile soils that are ideal for growing fruits and vegetables. In 2007, the City of Sacramento revised their Front Yard Landscape Ordinance 17.68.010 to allow vegetables and fruits to be grown in a front yard.

In September 2012, the Morongo Basic Open Space Group, in association with the Sonoran Institute, released the "Morongo Basin Conservation Priorities Report: A Strategy for Preserving Conservation Values". The development of this report brought a diversity of planning partners to the table over a multi-year time frame to map and identify areas for conservation action that will support local conservation values and provide room for local communities to grow and recreate. Encompassing 1,400 square miles in the Mohave Desert in California, this basin contains two incorporated communities and a fraction of the county of San Bernardino, the largest county in the contiguous United States. Conservation planning for this richly varied landscape with a strong sense of place has been undertaken since 2006 by a collaborative regional conservation planning group known as the Morongo Basin Open Space Group.

The purpose of the Model Desert Wildlife Connectivity and Habitat Overlay Ordinance is to assist local jurisdictions in the Morongo Basin and other desert communities in protecting natural landscapes and wildlife habitat corridors, the boundaries of which do not necessarily follow the boundaries of existing zoning districts. This Model Overlay Ordinance does not propose to change the existing permitted uses or development densities within a jurisdiction's zoning districts. Rather, it sets forth design standards, construction requirements, best practices, and incentives to minimize habitat disturbance and reduce land fragmentation that results in adverse impacts to connectivity and habitat for treasured native desert species.

In 2007, San Francisco was the first city to ban non-compostable plastic checkout bags in supermarket and pharmacy chains. Called the “Plastic Bag Reduction Ordinance”, grocery stores were only allowed to provide recyclable paper bags, compostable plastic bags and/or reusable bags. The specific definitions of these bags are outlined in the 2007 Ordinance. Grocery stores or pharmacies that did not comply with the ordinance faced a $100 fine for a first violation, a $200 fine for a second violation and a fine not exceeding $500 for additional violations within the same year.

San Francisco, CA is a destination city, characterized by the distinct natural features of the San Francisco Bay, the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Cruz Mountains. Through the years, the City's appeal has caused an upsurge in both population, automobile usage exacerbating traffic congestion and consequently, air pollution. Public transportation is helping to re-focus the San Francisco Bay Area by strengthening existing communities and encouraging pedestrian-oriented neighborhoods. Together, San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART), the Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Guidelines and the Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Policy encourage higher density development within walking and bicycling distance of BART stations. TOD is a concept that places residential, employment and commercial facilitates next to public transit stations to make it easier for people to work, live and shop in different areas of the City without depending on a car.

Many scenario planning tools have been developed to respond to regional growth challenges, and thus are particularly well suited to planning at a large scale. Metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) tend to use these tools to encompass a geography beyond individual cities and counties. Examples include regional transportation plans (RTPs), integrated regional land use and transportation plans, regional visioning, and plans to reach GHG reduction targets. Scenario planning tools are frequently linked with other models operated by MPOs, such as economic models, transportation models, and infrastructure models.

The Conceptual Land Use Scenario (CLUS) was developed for Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) in response to the passage of Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32), which requires California to reduce statewide carbon emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020, and Senate Bill 375 (SB 375), which calls for coordinated, regional land use and transportation planning to help reduce the state's total carbon emissions. Because the region had to go beyond existing policy to meet the anticipated carbon emissions reduction target, SCAG decided to explore how far land use planning could go toward reducing regional vehicle miles traveled. SCAG used Envision Tomorrow to isolate specific land use planning principles known to reduce trips—such as increased density, mixed land uses, and focused growth around transit areas—to evaluate how such changes might impact transportation patterns and reduce regional emissions.