AQN magazine - Issue 21 - June '23

Uniting what’s next in traffic.

We are connecting the dots of a new mobility revolution that is transforming our towns and cities.

With the broadest end-to-end portfolio of intelligent traffic management solutions, we work with cities, highway authorities and mobility

operators to make their road networks and fleets intelligent, enhance road safety and improve air quality.

It’s time to make the world a better place. We are ready. Are you?

www.yunextraffic.com/uk

Welcome to AirQualityNews magazine

Contacts

Publisher:

David Harrison

d.harrison@spacehouse.co.uk

01625 614 000

Editor: Paul Day paul@spacehouse.co.uk

01625 614 000

Business Development Manager: Jason Hall jason@spacehouse.co.uk 07889 212414

Finance Manager: Jenny Leach jenny@spacehouse.co.uk

01625 614 000

Administration: Jules Pointon admin@spacehouse.co.uk

01625 614 000

AirQualityNews Procurement Guidepublished by Spacehouse Ltd, Pierce House, Pierce Street, Macclesfield. SK11 6EX. Tel: 01625 614 000

The special report in this issue is air quality monitoring, the foundations on which everything we do is built. In the report we look at both ends of the monitoring spectrum – from local authorities with their legal obligation to review and assess local air quality, to individual community groups with concerns about air quality issues on an even more localised scale.

The work the community groups do, their commitment to getting cleaner air in their neighbourhoods and the energy they bring to it is very encouraging. Particularly at a time when the foghorn press would have you believe that clean air zones are a diabolical plot to rob us of our freedom.

Coincidentally, two other features in the magazine mine a similar seam. The big interview is with Jenny Jones, Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb who was campaigning on environmental issues long before entering politics, where she has gone on to shake things up in the House of Lords.

Meanwhile, in our International feature, we speak to another very influential woman in the air quality landscape, Dominique Browning, founder of Moms Clean Air Force in the USA, an organisation that now has over 1.5m members.

Guest writers in this issue include Matt Hutchings KC, who has penned our legal feature from the perspective of being one of the founders of Lawyers Are Responsible, a group that has caused a bit of a furore of late, by refusing to follow the centuries-old cab rank rule on ethical grounds.

Dr Sanja Potgieter-Vermaark of Manchester Metropolitan University, who spoke at our Manchester conference in March, has been researching Living Green Walls and discusses their benefits, particularly as means of increasing Energy Performance Certificate ratings in retrofits. Regular contributor Martin Guttridge-Hewitt looks at the complexities of eliminating emissions from the supply chain in order to meet Scope 3 standards and the platforms that can help decision-makers to realise effective change.

When two-year-old Awaab Ishak died in December 2020 due to being exposed to an excessive amount of damp and mould in his Rochdale home, the county woke up to a problem that blighted 160,000 social homes. Following this up, Emily Whitehouse speaks to Rochdale Boroughwide Housing about their efforts to improve the standards of social housing and the associated quality of indoor air.

All rights reserved. Reproduction, in whole or part without written permission is strictly prohibited.

Paul Day

Tel: 01625 614000 paul@spacehouse.co.uk

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Pages 26-27

Legal:

Lawyers Are Responsible: Refusing to defend the indefensible

Contents

Pages 6-7: News

Pages 10-12 Feature: In it together: The urgent need to understand supply chain emissions

Pages 13-15 Special Report: Air quality monitoring case study: Cardiff

Pages 16-18 Feature:

Sensors working overtime: How Breathe London are helping community groups help themselves

Pages 28-29

The Big Interview: Jenny Jones, Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

In it together: The urgent need to understand supply chain emissions

Pages 16-18 Feature: Sensors working overtime: How Breathe London are helping community groups help themselves

Pages 34-35 Feature: The challenge of improving indoor air quality in social housing

Pages 20-22 Product Feature: An overview of some of the leading air quality monitoring equipment from some of the foremost companies in the industry

Pages 26-27

Legal:

Lawyers Are Responsible: Refusing to defend the indefensible

Partners

Pages 36-38

International: Mothers of Invention: How Moms Clean Air Force are influencing the air quality landscape in America

Pages 20-22 Product Feature: An overview of some of the leading air quality monitoring equipment from some of the foremost companies in the industry

Pages 28-29

The Big Interview: Jenny Jones, Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Pages 32-33 Feature: Living Green Walls: the future of urban green infrastructure?

Pages 34-35 Feature: The challenge of improving indoor air quality in social housing

Pages 36-38

International:

Mothers of Invention: How Moms Clean Air Force are influencing the air quality landscape in America

Page 39 Marketing:

Thanks to:

Matt Hutchings KC Dr Sanja PotgieterVermaark

Dominique Browning Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Pages 6-7 News: Research highlights failings in outer London transport infrastructure

Scientists tell Prime Minister: Distance yourself from ‘merchants of doubt’, 36 leading air pollution scientists from across the UK have signed a letter to Rishi Sunak warning him that political dialogue is becoming worryingly close to science denial. The letter references the world class air quality research in the UK before continuing: ‘What politicians do with these factual truths is up to them. However, recently the facts have been questioned and scientists have been discredited in an attack on the very essence of our scientific community.

‘Mainstream politicians have been attending rallies run by conspiracy theorists. They have been loudly repeating their dismissal of our science on social media accounts and broadcast interviews. They have spoken of not believing the science in the London Assembly and in Parliament.

‘A collapse in the trust of the scientific process would be a disaster. We urge you to disassociate from the merchants of doubt and, in no uncertain terms, to tell your party colleagues to not endorse them or emulate their pervasive claims that sow cynicism and undermine the factual and truth foundations of life’.

Brum Breathes Fund to provide £4m to help community groups clean up Birmingham’s air

On the second anniversary of Birmingham’s Clean Air Zone a round of funding is being made available which will provide £4m to support schemes and projects across the city to help improve air quality. Single-member council wards will receive up to £20,000 per year and two-member wards up to £40,000 per year, for the next two years. All the funding is from revenues generated by the Clean Air Zone itself.

Councillor Liz Clements, Cabinet Member for Transport at Birmingham City Council, said: ‘We’re committed to helping our residents to achieve their full potential by improving the quality of the air they breathe. The Brum Breathes Fund will provide support to local Councillors and community groups to improve air quality in every corner of the city’.

Research highlights failings in outer London transport infrastructure

‘Moving with the Times’ is a programme of research from independent think tank Centre for London designed to address the future of transport around the capital. In their latest report they look at how to support more sustainable travel in outer London.

The headline findings of the research is that more people in outer London are compelled to own cars by the lack of reliable public transport or active travel infrastructure. This is obviously timely information given the forthcoming expansion of the city’s Low Emission Zone.

In the foreword Sak Gill, VicePresident and General Manager South East England, Enterprise Holdings says: ‘Outer London is, by definition, different to inner London. How residents across outer London move around is very different too. A lot of journeys are local and don’t head into or terminate in central London.’

69% of households in outer London have access to a car, compared to 42% in inner London and 77% in England as a whole.

38% of journeys in outer London

are made by car – exactly double the number in inner London – and half of these journeys are less than two miles long. The report identifies three areas in which change is needed: the cycle network needs greater coverage, public transport routes need connecting to new developments at a much earlier stage and shared transport should be delivered more consistently.

Claire Harding, Interim Chief

Executive of Centre for London said: ‘There are 5.4 million people in outer London – as many as live in Scotland. But many of these people don’t have access to the transport options that their inner London counterparts enjoy.

‘Improving the options people have to travel sustainably for local trips, not just commuting, is at the heart of making London a more liveable city.’

Air quality monitoring stations discovered to be collecting biodiversity data

In a remarkable turn of events, a group of scientists have discovered that air quality monitoring stations around the world are doing more than taking air samples, they are also collecting biodiversity data in the form of environmental DNA. It has previously been accepted that worldwide biodiversity monitoring simply didn’t exist.

information, an experiment was devised.

An air quality station was set up in a large London park, collecting samples for an hour, a day and a week, and these were compared to eight-month-old samples from a public station in Scotland.

The discovery came about after researchers Joanne Littlefair of Queen Mary University of London and York University Assistant Professor Elizabeth Clare, proved that the presence of individual species can be detected by eDNA in the air. That would have been the end of the story, had Dr James Allerton and Dr Andrew Brown, two scientists at the UK’s National

Physical Laboratory (NTL) not seen that research.

Allerton said: ‘We were routinely collecting particulate matter looking to measure pollutants in air but when we saw the work, we realised maybe we were sitting on something much more valuable.’

After contacting Littlefair and Clare to ask if it was possible their monitors were collecting this

Elizabeth Clare: ‘We were surprised by the diversity of life we were able to survey with one approach, almost unheard in this field of science. In these two locations, we simultaneously detected the eDNA of 34 bird and 24 mammal species, a wide variety of insects, crops, pathogenic fungus, lovely wildflowers, ornamental garden plants and grasses.

‘We found species of interest, such as hedgehogs, along with badgers, deer, dormice, little owls, smooth newts, songbirds and 80 different kinds of woodland trees and plants – oak, linden, ash, pine – it was all there collected on these tiny filters. It’s unbelievably exciting.’

UK's Electricity System Operator announce plans to speed up connections to the electricity grid

Following the revelation that some renewable energy projects are facing waits of up to 15 years to be connected to the grid, barely a week goes by without a new initiative being announced to reduce these delays.

The milestones that projects will have to meet are points such as raising finance, buying land, getting planning permission and breaking ground.

Whitbread to remove mains gas connection from across its estate

At the same time as announcing that its net zero target has been validated by the ScienceBased Targets initiative (SBTi), Whitbread, owners of Premier Inn have said they aim to remove all mains gas connection from their estate by 2040.

The news has been announced by the UK's Electricity System Operator in a document titled ‘Get on, get back or get out of the energy queue'. In a move they hope will reduce the current queues by 10 years, the ESO have written to parties involved in projects which will require grid connection, asking

for updates and 'project milestones,' so future progress can be monitored. Projects that are progressing slowly will be able to choose to move backwards or leave the queue in order to make way for punctual projects wanting to connect. The ESO say these reforms will mean that projects will be able to connect up to ten years earlier.

Putting the current situation into context, the ESO point out that there are approximately 220 projects due to connect to the national transmission system before 2026, totalling around 40GW but only half of these have got planning consent at this stage and some have moved their connection dates back by over 14 years.

It was also announced that the connection of battery storage projects, which make up 34% of the current projects in the queue, would be accelerated and that the ESO are looking at ways to enable developers to build their own connections into the grid beyond the current 2km limit.

Large planning applications must now consult Active Travel England

Active Travel England will help deliver walking, wheeling and cycling infrastructure on all future large developments, having been officially confirmed as a statutory consultee on all planning applications for developments exceeding 150 housing units, 7,500 m2 of floorspace or 5 hectares in area.

Active Travel England will now be involved in guiding planning authorities towards making active travel a significant element of future developments.

It is predicted that this will see ATE reviewing around 3,100 applications a year, roughly 60% of new homes. It will be their role to ensure that such developments enjoy active travel connectivity with nearby schools and amenities.

This announcement follows a pilot project during which ATE worked with 30 local authorities to assess more than 60 developments over the nine months up until November 2022.

Feedback from a survey at the start of the pilot saw 80% of respondents agree ATE should have a role in the planning system.

Active Travel Commissioner

Chris Boardman said: ‘Designing activity back into our neighbourhoods and creating places where children have transport independence is achievable – it just needs smart planning.

‘As a statutory consultee ATE will work with planning authorities and developers to help them ensure new estates give people what they need to get fresh air and exercise,

save money on petrol and help fight climate change.’ Following the announcement, active travel charity Sustrans tweeted: ‘Too many new housing developments force people to depend on cars for their everyday journeys, due to a lack of local amenities and poor (or non-existent) active travel and public transport links. It’s encouraging to see steps towards changing this’

Their Net Zero Transition includes a commitment to remove mains gas from its existing estate where possible, including over 800 Premier Inn hotels, using a wide range of initiatives such as the installation of air source heat pumps, solar panels, only using renewable energy and the installation of more energy efficient kitchen equipment.

Later this year the first all-electric Premier Inn will open in Swindon. Designed without a gas connection, the hotel will be fully heated and powered by grid energy generated from renewable sources and by on-site solar.

European Respiratory Society demands ‘decisive action’ to achieve clean air in Europe for all

At the Clean Air in Europe for All conference in Brussels, the European Respiratory Society's Professor Zorana J Andersen called for the European Union to take 'decisive action' to achieve clean air in Europe: ‘Air pollution and climate change are inseparable issues,' she said. 'Reducing air pollution and mitigating climate change should be dealt with together to help protect our health.'

The conference discussed proposed revisions to EU’s Ambient Air Quality Directive which has set a target of zero air pollution by 2050, with an interim target of 2030 to meet WHO standards.

The ERS called for swift adoption of the Directive, observing that by aligning the Directive with the WHO air quality standards and improving on existing interventions to tackle air pollution, Europe can take significant steps towards achieving the zero-pollution target and safeguarding public health.

The WHO’s Dr Maria Neira said: ‘We know that those are ambitious, but how can you not be ambitious when you are talking about protecting people’s health?'

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In it together: The urgent need to understand supply chain emissions

The environmental footprint of any organisation goes well beyond its own operations. Martin Guttridge-Hewitt gets to grips with the idea of downstream impact, and the platforms that can help decision-makers to realise effective change.

2023 is likely to be remembered as another pivotal year in environmental terms. And not just due to the record temperatures predicted for the northern hemisphere’s summer, and expectations the 1.5C global warming barrier will be temporarily exceeded in the 12 months to December.

In early June, the European Union (EU) passed its new Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). Targeting large organisations within the trading bloc and European Economic Area, the regulations essentially introduce mandatory audits for the entire ‘chain of activities’ to ensure that everything from environmental to human rights standards are being met at every stage of operations. This means limiting or removing Scope 3 emissions,

the polluting greenhouse gases produced within supply and value chains, is about to become a much more pressing matter. Just as Scope 1, emissions produced internally, and Scope 2, those generated through energy use, already are. And the impact of this will not be limited to the EU itself. Any organisation with a turnover from European trade of €150 million or more will need to comply. Meanwhile, as European decision makers look to clean up supply chains to meet new legislation, pressure is bound to mount on suppliers and customers anywhere in the world.

For many non-EU organisations, taking action means getting the jump on similar regulations being introduced in their home region. The US Securities and Exchange

[ EY Rob Doepel ] [ Huw Bunn ] [ Relex Svante ]

Commission, for example, has already ignited fierce debate with a proposed Scope 3 reporting mandate. And, although the UK’s Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting legislation does not cover this yet, it seems inevitable this will happen in the near future. Not least given the so-called ‘shadow’ of supply chain emissions is often significantly larger than the more easily understood ‘footprint’ from internal activities.

‘The majority of emissions typically come from the supply chain, so while this is an area that presents the highest emissions risk for businesses it’s also an opportunity to make tremendous progress. However, this will not be a straightforward process and approaches will vary greatly from industry to industry,’ says Rob Doepel, Managing Partner, Sustainability, UK & Ireland, at professional services giant Ernst & Young (EY), and a member of the UK and Ireland Performance Markets and Investment Committee.

‘New regulation is going to make it even more complex. We’re going to see a significant amount of investment into building data systems, aligning on what the indicators should look like, and establishing processes to collect information from suppliers,’ he continues. ‘[But] I wouldn’t advise any company to wait for legislation or regulation to come into effect before acting. This approach removes the chance to claim a first-mover advantage, and also leads companies to only think about net zero as a compliance or risk matter, while ignoring the opportunities.’

Formed in 2022, the UK’s Transition Plan Taskforce has now published draft guidance for organisations to produce their own gold standard decarbonisation plans, providing a comprehensive overview of all measures that

need to be taken. EY’s own analysis shows how off-course major corporations currently are – only 5% of FTSE 100 companies have published roadmaps that would be deemed credible under this framework.

A separate investigation by the British Standards Institute, conducted last year, found that 80% of SMEs consider setting and delivering net zero targets to be vital, a three-fold increase on 2020. But just 17% have taken steps towards sustainability, and only 20% measure and report emissions. In the public sector, the awareness-action gap is equally evident. Research by E.On and Local Government Chronicle suggests over 50% of UK councils are not confident about climate targets, and in January 2022 Climate Emergency UK revealed one-in-five authorities had no action plan whatsoever in place.

To get an idea of how complex Scope 3 emissions can be, we spoke to Svante Göthe, Head of Sustainability at RELEX in Gothenburg, a market-leading supply chain and retail planning platform. Powered by AI, the firm produces precise demand forecasts directing anything from how much of a product should be ordered, and when, to minimum staffing levels. In spring, the company proudly published a report into its efforts to minimise food waste among customers. In 2022, 11m kilograms of waste was avoided through smart buying. That’s enough to feed the city of Durham for a year and equates to 35,000 tonnes of CO2.

‘Of course, everybody understands that food waste, by definition, is a bad thing. But I think when numbers are presented, people are shocked because they don't realise how big a problem it actually is. Roughly one-third of all food in the world that is produced for human consumption never ends up being consumed by people. Somewhere within the long supply chains it ends up as waste,’ Göthe tells us. ‘That alone is a big number. But if we start to think about the environmental effects of producing that food waste, up to 10% of all greenhouse gases emitted worldwide come from producing food which nobody eats.

‘Start comparing that number with the things we know are causing emissions, for example flying. Aviation, depending on how you calculate it, makes up around 3% of global emissions. Combined road transport worldwide is 12 to 15%. So, food waste is huge. And that’s just emissions. There are other environmental aspects as well, like water consumption. Something like 6% of all water consumed across the planet goes on wasted food. Then there’s land use. That space could be used for something other than producing food that will never be eaten.’

While this may seem like a problem for the grocery stores that make up one of RELEX’s biggest client bases, Göthe is quick to point out the firm’s customers work across a range of sectors. Supply chain efficiency is a significant challenge in all areas of the economy, and this includes the public sector. For food waste, and associated emissions, schools and other public institutions such as hospitals have canteens or restaurants on-site and could see significant savings in terms of both financial expenditure and supply chain footprint by switching to this type of smart ordering system.

Huw Bunn is the founder of Dedlyne, a new platform that assess the climate steps an organisation has already taken – from emissions reductions to waste - and produces easy to understand projections of the date by which climate and sustainability targets will be met. This summer, the firm launches a data-based project allowing all stakeholders in the public sector to see whether current measures are effective enough to hit specific goals. This means the

public can ascertain how well a council is doing and where improvements are needed. Meanwhile, users within the authority’s own staff are better placed to develop more accurate and effective plans.

‘There’s a great quote by David Attenborough. He says: ‘Saving the planet is now a communication issue.’ That’s essentially what Dedlyne is trying to address,’ Bunn says, giving the hypothetical example of a company with a strong renewable energy policy also needing to make sure staff are powering down at the end of the day, or risk undoing at least some of the gains from using clean power. ‘There are some brilliant courses available through the United Nations which you can just go on… We can direct people to these things that can really help understand the behavioural triggers to

look at. Paying a living wage is a great thing, but are your suppliers also doing that? Have you asked?

‘It’s really important to look beyond just climate and net zero, because some of the behavioural triggers for improved performance aren’t necessarily to do with renewable energy or things like that,’ he continues. ‘Environmental, social and governance (ESG) is the wrong way of approaching it. That’s basically glorified corporate social responsibility, which is discredited because a lot of promises are never delivered. Instead, Sustainable Development Goals – which were designed for countries, not companies – are key, and new guidelines tied to these have been produced for organisations, with interesting content around localised procurement standards, and things like that.’

When asked for his top advice to the public and private sector for a better understanding of their supply chain impact, in many ways Bunn reiterates what both Göthe and Doepel already said. The first step should be improving knowledge to make everyone aware of the positive impact they can have. In-depth measurement is essential to identify how Scope 1 and 2 emissions could be reduced. Once established internally, policies are far easier to pass down the chain, helping, or mandating, others to fall in line or risk ending the working relationship.

In many ways, local authorities are particularly wellplaced to have this type of impact. So much work is undertaken on behalf of councils, rather than by their payroll employees. But, due to the highly connected modern business world, it’s also clear that every organisation not only has the potential to encourage external partners to take climate-positive steps, but responsibility to realise this opportunity, reinforcing the idea that collective action is the only viable solution to the environmental crisis.

Air quality monitoring case study: Cardiff

After a day in court, at which the Welsh Government admitted to failings in air quality management, Cardiff Council are now taking steps to clear the air

In 2017 the environmental law organisation ClientEarth took legal action against the Welsh and UK Governments over illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide. Both governments steeled themselves for a fight but to the surprise of almost everyone present, barrister for the Welsh Government, Jonathan Moffett QC got things underway by conceding.

The Welsh Government had chosen their moment in the High Court to admit that their lack of a plan for tackling illegal levels of air pollution in the country was unlawful. Jonathan Moffett went on to say said ministers would work with ClientEarth to agree a legally-binding ‘consent order’.

Outside the court, ClientEarth CEO James Thornton said: “Welsh ministers have admitted in court that their inaction on air pollution was unlawful. It’s incredibly disappointing that we had to drag them to court to get them to admit this and to commit to action to stop people in Wales having to breathe dirty air. People across Wales have been breathing illegal levels of air pollution for years and we hope the Welsh Government will waste no time now in committing to strong and decisive action to cleaning it up.”

At this point Cardiff had already declared four Air Quality Management Areas (AQMAs) across the authority due to exceedances of the annual mean nitrogen dioxide Air Quality Standard (40 μg/m3), known to be caused by road transport.

As they were duty bound to do, the council had produced Air Quality Action Plans (AQAP) for each area but in their 2019 Air Quality Feasibility Study Outline Business Case they conceded that the plans had not been successful:

“The main issue with this particular approach is that the AQAP focuses on introducing local measures to individual road links and areas, which only targets at improving air quality within the identified AQMA itself.

Whilst such measures have been

successful in improving air quality within the individual AQMA such localised measures have led to an adverse impacts on air quality in surrounding areas and result in more widespread air quality issues.”

Furthermore, the initial study identified that by 2021, the central thoroughfare, Castle Street, would be in breach of the EU Directive with some other roads being areas of concern.

The council issued a statement: “Air pollution on Castle Street is a symptom of a wider problem which extends far beyond this stretch of road. We have to improve the emissions of the fleet of vehicles using the road network, decrease the number of cars that drive through the city centre, and increase the use of sustainable travel alternatives such as cycling and walking.”

The most recent Outline Business Case concluded that a package of non-charging measures is the preferred option when compared with a charging Clean Air Zone, on the basis that the non-charging measures would deliver wider air quality benefits across all of Cardiff when compared directly to the results of the charging Clean Air Zones.

Furthermore, government guidance is clear that where pollution limits can be met by non-charging solutions that these should be the preferred option over any charging scheme.

The following proposed measures are currently concept designs at this stage and look to tackle the problem of air pollution in the city centre. An outline bid for funding has been made to the Welsh Government for the schemes and these will be refined, following public consultation and cabinet approval.

• Implementation of electric buses to replace the oldest and most polluting buses – costing £1.8m

• Introduction of a Bus Retrofitting Scheme for bus operators in Cardiff to upgrade older buses so they meet Euro VI engine emission standards –costing £1.4m

• Review and implement a revised taxi

policy to ensure that all applications to grant a ‘new vehicle license’ or for a ‘change of a vehicle on a current license’ are only approved for vehicles that meet the latest Euro 6 emission standards – costing £5.5m.

Active travel is also being promoted with major changes planned to both Castle Street and Westgate Street and the city centre loop to allow for better and more efficient movement of public transport and increasing active travel capacity in the city centre.

The council plans to improve walking and cycle routes across the city over the next three years and the Nextbike public cycle hire scheme and has been hugely successful with 6,000 people registered users making more than10,000 journeys per week .

Last year the council were collecting diffusion tube data from over 100 sites across the city which included monitoring outside a number of schools. There was also automated monitoring equipment at four locations

“People across Wales have been breathing illegal levels of air pollution for years and we hope the Welsh Government will waste no time now in committing to strong and decisive action to cleaning it up.”

across the city and a further seven new real time monitoring stations were added at the end of the year.

Adopting a risk-based approach, the council agreed to place an additional 47 indicative real-time air quality monitors across the city, with the location focusing on known areas of concern and where more vulnerable citizens may be exposed, including schools and health centres and they turned to Neathbased Vortex to supply their Welshmanufactured VTX Air monitors.

The new network of VTX Air monitors across the city, and wider Cardiff area is providing accurate and hyperlocal data on a range of pollutants to support local air quality improvement projects and promote a greater public awareness of the harmful impacts of air pollution.

Using the Vortex portal and a

customised application programming interface (API), the council can become more self-aware of activities that cause levels to rise and identify the pollution blind spots to plan future air projects while validating the success of current interventions.

Nick Ruxton-Boyle, Vortex IOT Director of Environment said: “By having a real focus on the air quality status quo outside schools and with traffic being an obvious problem around school streets, the council will now be able to measure the impact of idling vehicles during these peak times.”

Cllr Dan De’Ath, Cabinet Member for Strategic Planning and Transport at Cardiff Council added: “The latest study into air pollution in Cardiff shows that residents enjoyed cleaner air across the city throughout 2021

when compared with pre-pandemic figures in 2019. Although this data is encouraging, there is more work to do. We need to continue to reduce the levels of pollutants.

If we want people to be healthier, we have to encourage people to be less reliant on their cars, and to make the shift to public transport, cycling or walking. Not only will it benefit people’s health but will help the city reduce our carbon imprint as we look to combat climate change.

“Along with emissions from industry, vehicle emissions, especially from diesel vehicles are the highestcontributing factor to poor air quality in cities across the UK. By enhancing our monitoring network with these new monitors, we will better understand the air quality in Cardiff which will allow us to react quickly to any pollution concerns and ensure appropriate measures are put in place to reduce air pollution and improve the air that our residents breathe.”

Sensors working overtime: How Breathe London are helping community groups help themselves

Around the world, air quality monitoring is being democratised as air quality monitors become more affordable and there are more people willing to step in and help local communities understand the data

In April, Greg Bowser, president of the Louisiana Chemical Association was unhappy with the idea that his members might be legally bound to monitor the air quality around their plants. “I’d rather leave the system the way it is, so folks aren’t alarmed,” he bleated, “I worry that generating a lot of data will create a lot of fear.”

Sadly for Greg, that ship has sailed. Community groups and activists around the world are becoming increasingly savvy at organising themselves, analysing data and presenting it effectively. What’s more there are plenty of

institutions ready to help them.

Over the last four or five years, the Breathe London network has become an exemplar of community action on air quality. More than 40 local groups have been weaponised with monitoring equipment and are being supported by people who know what they’re talking about.

When Breathe London began in 2018 it looked quite different to its present incarnation. It was intended as a one-year programme jointly run by the GLA alongside C40 Cities and was primarily financed by the Children’s

[ Andrew Grieve (far left) having presented another community group with an air quality sensor ]

Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF).

250 school children and 33 teachers were given backpacks containing air quality sensors to carry with them for five days. The children were engaged in discussions about air quality issues and the resulting data was the most comprehensive yet seen.

The reason this happened in London was because it had an extensive air quality monitoring network not because it needed one. The sophisticated equipment the city already had in place could be used to validate data from the lower cost network being introduced. The intention being that, once the concept had been tested and proved, it could be replicated in lower capacity cities globally.

When the CIFF funding for the project ended, the Mayor secured more to continue the programme, which led to it becoming what it is today.

These days the network is run by the Environmental Research Group at Imperial College London (who also run the London Air Quality Network) along with the American air quality sensor company Clarity. Bloomberg Philanthropies have also supplied funding to the project.

The person to speak to regarding anything relating to Breathe London is Andrew Grieve from Imperial College’s Environmental Research Group, a man who says in his ICL profile: “My interests lie at the intersection of emerging digital technologies and air quality communication.”

The current incarnation of Breathe London began in 2021 when it was became known as the Breathe London Community Programme. In round one, ten local projects

were provided with air monitoring sensors. In Redbridge, Lydia Fraser-Ward installed hers in a children’s playground where she had spent a lot of time during lockdown. “I am deeply concerned by the effects of air pollution on health, and that is why I was so keen to support the campaign to have an air-quality monitor installed. The playground is set in lovely parkland surroundings but it is also close to the A406, which has very high levels of vehicular pollution.”

Lydia’s monitor became something of celebrity, with Sadiq Khan paying it a visit shortly after it was installed.

When Breathe was first launched, Andrew pointed out on an ICL podcast that “The impact of air pollution is not equal, research has shown that there are some demographics that are more affected by air pollution than others and quite often these are low income groups. So one of the aims of the project is to try and reach communities that are affected by pollution but maybe not yet as engaged in it as some others are.”

This sense of disengagement among disadvantaged communities has been brought up in other projects such as Born in Bradford, in which respondents felt they had too many other things to worry about without becoming concerned with something they couldn’t even see.

As Andrew subsequently realised, “If you’re approaching deprived areas and offering them air quality monitoringwhich is probably something that they’ve never thought of before, you’re going to need to give them support. But there’s a real benefit for the community groups feeling a sense of ownership of the sensors they have. ”

As the project matured - it’s recently launched its third round, in which 20 monitors have been distributed - the groups taking them on have been more informed.

There are now 40 groups in the programme and as Andrew says, “They all have slightly different aims but there’s a commonality and one of the common themes is that more of them are interacting with the local authority. They’re presenting their data and saying “what can you do about this?”

Needless to say this sort of interaction is new and potentially confusing to local authorities. To what extent do they trust the data being presented to them?

“Local authorities are now increasingly faced with this,” says Andrew, “people buying sensors off eBay and taking their data to them and saying ‘this is our data, now we want you to do this’. And authorities are faced with a dilemma‘it’s not regulatory monitoring data but we still have a group of passionate residents here who want to do something, how do I present this to the transport team or the environment team?’”

The Breathe monitors do not present this problem, in fact their accuracy is built around the very monitors the authorities use to gather their data. “The reliability of this new generation of small, inexpensive sensors can be compromised by changes in temperature and humidity and different particle make-ups so to counter that we ensure that our monitors are co-located alongside reference stations before being taken into the field. We also have 19 Clarity sensors at reference stations permanently. We look at how they are performing versus the reference station every hour, then apply a correction factor to the rest of the network. That dramatically improves the data quality.”

This gives the local authorities more certainty that the data is accurate, which puts the community group on a more even footing. “That’s an important aspect of the programme.” says Andrew, “ We want to empower the

community groups and while you could argue they should be doing it entirely on their own I think most of the groups have felt the benefit of being able to say ‘this data has come from Imperial’”.

Andrew sees these smaller, cheaper monitors as complimenting the existing system, not undermining it. “The rules about where regulatory monitors have to go are very specific. They’re set out in the technical guidance which is updated every two years or so. But they are very specific for good reason: data from one local authority is comparable to another because they’re all buying the same types of monitors and following the same siting criteria.”

to when he says: “Having a sensor is useful but it’s just the start of the story. Success is dependent on having amazing people and putting in the time and effort, that’s what it comes down to.”

Meanwhile, back in the USA, more groups are preparing to prove to Greg Bowser that ordinary people are not intimidated by data, as the New York State Government announces $2.1 million in funding to provide monitoring equipment to community-driven projects. “The funding will support community-based not-for-profit organisations working in disadvantaged communities throughout the state that are disproportionately burdened by pollution. The grants will advance local efforts to obtain air quality data tailored to issues identified by community residents.”

Everybody’s doing it...

COMMENTS FROM A HANDFUL OF COMMUNITY GROUPS INVOLVED IN THE BREATH LONDON NETWORK

Born Everywhere, Made in Newham

Newham’s residents are increasingly concerned about poor air quality in the borough. We are a young, diverse and thriving borough, and we are coming together as a community to take action and improve the environment we live in.

Stockwell Main Road Communities

After doing manual traffic counts on our road and trying to lobby the council to install an AQ monitor we saw the BL programme advertised and want to now use our membership of the network and data from the node to boost awareness of AQ issues facing residential main road communities.

Climate Action Lewisham

“These small sensors can fill in the gaps in between, either in places where you can’t physically get a reference monitor or if it’s for a specific community concern that wouldn’t warrant putting in 25 grand’s worth of equipment.”

In Brixton, Sacha Manson-Smith and partner Louise Thomas have been presented with a Breathe London monitor as part of the third round. They had first become interested in air quality matter in 2019 when they were part of a group campaigning for a School Street outside a primary school in Lambeth. “We borrowed a portable air quality monitor from Lambeth Council.” says Sacha, “We were hoping to measure PM2.5 levels to provide a baseline. However, the data from the monitor was difficult to interpret correctly as it was a single snapshot and without any longer-term information.”

This did not put them off and when they heard about the Breath project they applied for a monitor to place at their younger daughter’s nursery, situated at the heart of Brixton, just off the highly polluted A23.

“The prospect of being able to site a calibrated air quality monitor, backed by the expertise of the ERG group at Imperial College London, was a great opportunity to take our involvement in local air quality monitoring further.

“They offer community groups guidance on interpreting air quality data, ideas for engaging with the public and a network of groups across London doing the same to bounce ideas off. We didn’t expect all of the wrap-around support and it’s been amazing!”

The couple have since started a blog to document their experiences: www.substack.com/@airaware

Sacha and Louise in Brixton, and Lydia Fraser-Ward in Redbridge are the sort of people Andrew Grieve is referring

The new monitor will give us visibility of air pollution levels on Lewisham Way. Ashmead Primary School is on the north side of this heavily congested road and Lewisham college on the South side, so large numbers of children and young people spend their days in this area.

Haringey Fixers

Really grateful we've been made this award. These Breathe London sensors base our response to climate change on real and continuing evidence.

Christ’s College Finchley Breathe

Joining the Breathe London Community Programme will provide our students with an exceptional opportunity to understand the air pollution levels in our local area.

Hounslow Borough Respiratory Support Group

We are keen to play our part in reducing harmful emissions to provide a better and safer environment for our members and the general public.

Hyde Park Estate Residents

There has been a highly emotional and divisive debate locally about measures to reduce rat-running and air pollution, while improving road safety. This new research tool will sharpen that debate moving forward ”

Beckton Community Air Quality Group

The availability of hard data offers a powerful rationale for action. We also hope this work will forge a long-lasting local commitment and relationship between health, education and our environment

The Friends of St James Primary School

Participation in the Breathe London Community Programme is an exciting opportunity to empower our school community to monitor, evaluate, and act on improving local and city-wide air quality

[ Sacha Manson-Smith (far left) with the Jessop School Streets team making a petition to Lambeth Council at Lambeth Town Hall for temporary road closures, crossings and other traffic calming measures ]

Virtual Zephyrs is the perfect choice for keeping tabs on air quality in places where traditional air quality monitoring is not feasible. Using high accuracy modelled hourly air quality data from our bespoke MappAir® model, visualised through our intuitive MyAir® web application, Virtual Zephyrs allows you to track air quality information like never before. Simply select an area of interest, and Virtual Zephyrs will fill the gaps in locations where hardware isn’t or can’t be deployed, with accuracy in line with data quality objectives of 2008/50EC that rivals many other sensor technologies available on the market today.

No matter the need, we have a range of flexible solutions to monitor and model your air quality. Whether you’re inspiring behavioural change by engaging and informing the public about air quality, making data-informed decisions to reduce air pollution, or monitoring your air quality strategy implementations. Speak to one of our quality experts today to see how we can help you achieve your air quality goals.

Looking for an affordable and flexible solution for understanding air quality?

Product Feature:

An overview of some of the leading air quality monitoring equipment from some of the foremost companies in the industry

Acoem

When it comes to safeguarding air quality for communities today and into the future, innovation isn’t merely the introduction of new technology - it’s fundamentally changing how we think about challenges and taking more holistic approaches to solving them.

Acoem take immense pride in the service and maintenance contracts they hold for air quality instrumentation and sites across the UK. With over 250 sites across the UK, their teams service the national AURN and Black Carbon networks as well as many local authority, private industry and university sites.

They understand that the credibility of air quality data hinges on its accuracy, transparency and defensibility. From deploying state of the art instrumentation to implementing traceable data systems,

including their very own acoemuk.net for meticulous logging and storage, every aspect of the process is designed to uphold the highest standards. By presenting data in a clear and meaningful manner, they enable their

AQMesh

AQ Mesh has been supporting local authorities across the UK with air quality monitoring for over ten years, offering a cost-effective solution for both short and long-term initiatives. AQMesh pods are very easy to install on lampposts, running unattended for years.

Data access is completely secure via an easy-to-use web application and all data collected is owned by the local authority – nobody else has access to the potentially sensitive information being gathered.

The pods are designed, developed, sold, refurbished, upgraded, and fully supported from the UK-based factory. They are built to order with a standard lead time of two weeks, which includes a rigorous quality control

customers to make informed policy decisions aimed at mitigating air pollution and improving the lives of stakeholders.

www.acoem.co.uk

process to ensure the best possible accuracy.

There is no charge for technical support, and customers will benefit from the product’s 5-year manufacturer’s warranty, free-ofcharge remote diagnostics, firmware and gas algorithm upgrades.

AQMesh continues to be the most proven small sensor air quality monitoring system on the market and can demonstrate high accuracy in a wide range of environmental conditions, through fog, wind, heat, heavy rain and snow. Numerous local authorities have AQMesh networks deployed across towns and cities as part of a range of pollution mitigation strategies.

www.aqmesh.com

Earthsense

“The Zephyr® air quality monitor is an award-winning, compact, certified and lightweight device that collects air quality measurements in real-time, providing visibility of air quality concentrations at its location, including NO, NO2, O3, CO, SO2, H2S, CO2, TVOC, PM1, PM2.5 and PM10 Constructed using extruded aluminium and polycarbonate-ABS plastics for a stronger and more durable casing with a greater temperature range; ideal for outdoor climates.

With two cartridge options, standard and enhanced, for detailed air quality measurements. Its modular cartridge system allows for easy replacement and installation without opening the main body of the unit.

The Zephyr® also has a thoughtful design for quick & simple installation and offers a selection of power options

including mains, battery or solar power. The monitor has various communication options such as WiFi, Bluetooth Companion App, and third-party sensors integration for sensors such as met stations via RS232 & RS485 port. It also offers flexible wireless communication through GSM 2G and 4G. Recently awarded indicative MCerts, an internationally recognised standard regarding ambient air monitoring for indicative ambient particulate monitors. The Zephyr® offers customers various benefits, such as

compliance with permit requirements for dust monitoring and construction activities, promoting public confidence in monitoring data, and confidence in using it as part of air quality management software.

The Zephyr® can be used in various applications, either as a standalone unit to measure air pollution at a specific point, providing localised understanding of air quality, or as a network of monitors to identify pollution hotspots and trends. The new Virtual Zephyrs, offer a cheaper alternative to create a network using the MappAir® air quality model. These fill the gaps in locations where hardware cannot be deployed, with accuracy that rivals many other sensor technologies available in the market today and abides by the European Union Directives (EUD50).”

www.earthsense.co.uk

communications (latest MEMS Technology)

• All configuration and data are managed remotely via intuitive software/cloud- platform

• Free virtual training and software updates

• UK support & maintenance

EEMC

EEMC Monitors has been working with their partner Omnidots, to enhance the digital capabilities of the wellknown ES-642, which now ticks all the following boxes:

Enviro Technology

The BAM-1020 automatically measures and records airborne particulate concentration levels (in milligrams or micrograms per cubic meter) using the industry-proven principle of beta-ray attenuation.

Enviro Technology has sold 635 BAM-1020 units to date with thousands of units currently deployed worldwide. Having been in production for over 20 years, it has earned an excellent reputation internationally for reliability, accuracy, and ease of use. This translates into robust air quality data and a lower cost of operation compared to other commonly used mass monitors.

Designed to run continuously for up to 60 days between site visits

• MCerts compliant

• Compact, light-weight and easy to install and maintain

• Data in ‘real-time’ (and instantaneous alerts by text/SMS/email)

• Integrated 4G and WiFi

and maintenance, the BAM-1020 also contains a comprehensive selftest function that allows the unit to routinely self-test for any mechanical failures in the system, so you don’t have to!

Key features include:

• Cost-effective, to buy, operate and run

• Full remote operation and touchscreen display

• Rugged and reliable

• UK DEFRA MCERTS approved for use on all UK monitoring networks

• EN16450-2017 approved

• Fast and easy field audits

• Benchtop or rack mount operation in mobile or stationary shelters

www.et.co.uk

They also have increased our range of air quality monitors offerings, adding another product capable of measuring PM10, PM2.5, PM1, and gases (NO2, NOX, CO, CO2, H2S, SO2 and VOCs). This new addition also incorporating video capabilities, offering the versatility to be used across multiple applications.

eemc-monitors.co.uk

Turnkey

At Turnkey Instruments Ltd, design and manufacturing has evolved to offer lower cost monitoring solutions for both gases and particulates. Combined with their own web portal, Airqweb, this offers an intuitive and comprehensive data management suite to complete the package.

Unlike many other products currently available, that combine dust and gas measurements in one unit, they offer separate monitors to increase flexibility in monitoring strategies.

The new IPM real time particulate monitor includes MCerts for PM10 and PM 2.5, and comes in a small compact enclosure, easy to locate in urban environments. Whilst still retaining the heated inlet to ensure accuracy over all months of the year. Complimenting this is the low cost iGAS ambient gas monitor utilising electro chemical sensors across all the key urban pollutants. These two monitors can

Vortex

Vortex’s, hyperlocal air pollution monitoring devices measure particulate matter and gaseous pollutants in real-time. VTX Air undertakes environmental sensing in ambient air, including temperature and relative humidity.

SIM card free and maintenance free: Vortex active sampling sensors are deployed on a highly secure decentralised mesh network, and powered by AI, ensuring constant calibration with AURN stations with any required configurations performed over the air - truly plug and play technology that is priced to allow high density and scalable deployment.

Provider of one of the world's densest Air Quality Monitoring Network, Vortex makes reducing air pollution simple. By using street-level view/analysis of air quality in their area, one of their customers identified the nuance of pollution hotspots, discovered the causality of air pollution and with this intelligence reduced carbon emissions by 1 tonne a day and improved air quality by 50% for their residents.

VTX Air measures PM 2.5, PM10, PM100, NO, NO2, SO2, CO, and H2S and is designed to serve Central & Local Government, Industrial Emissions, Sports Grounds, Education & Healthcare Infrastructure, and Smart/connected cities. With custom dashboards, open API architecture for

easy integration, public portals, and end-to-end IoT system, our solution delivers on demand data that you can act on.

Vortex believe it's not enough to act on the causes of air pollution once you find them - we ensure that you can validate ROI from your interventions. Through connecting to a wireless mesh network, Vortex’s solution can integrate with 3rd party devises such as traffic management cameras and data sources to give a more holistic

be easily located together or deployed separately, creating a useful monitoring resource for maximum data acquisition over a larger area.

Designed for durability and costeffective long-term ownership, the new IPM has their own ultra pump installed which whilst not only running silent, can also offer a 24-month servicing and calibration interval.

The iGAS can measure up to six different pollutant species simultaneously, software algorithms correct cross-interference between species, and a zero-gas generator eliminates drift in the cells.

The products are supported by their dedicated service team based at their factory in Cheshire, with field calibration options available. Technical support and on-site training are offered on all their products and software as part of the service.

www.turnkey-instruments.com

approach to your clean air initiatives and better understand what impacts your air quality at a deeper granular level.

Vortex’s air quality monitoring solution support multiple clean air projects such as school streets, lowtraffic neighbourhoods, clean air zones and any other pollution reduction initiative that require pre and post project implementation monitoring.

www.vortexiot.com

Improve air quality and road safety with end-to-end School Streets programme!

School streets are becoming increasingly popular in the UK, with more than 500 across London alone.

Road traffic policies are getting stricter, technology is getting more intelligent, and we, as humans, are always looking at ways to improve our environment, infrastructure, and daily lives.

This has been the case with school streets, where we have witnessed an evolution in how they operate around the country. In a nutshell, school streets are a temporary road closure for certain motor vehicles outside the school gates during pick-up and drop-off periods. This is to help children access the school safely, promote active travel, reduce air pollution, and improve health.

Our solution to School Streets Benefits of School Streets

School Streets have traditionally been implemented with street signs and physical barriers to prevent motor vehicles from entering the car-free zone. Although, it is resource-intensive, unsightly and adds no value regarding health, infrastructure, and traffic congestion.

Together with our sister brands, we can provide either a partial or whole School Streets programme, from initial design and public engagement (Project Centre) to air quality measurement (Vortex) and control traffic contraventions with unattended CCTV technology (Videalert).

Unattended CCTV technology provides actionable data regarding the number of cars removed from the zone, vehicle type, co2 emission vehicle band, and much more. This can be coupled with a hyperlocal air quality monitoring solution to collect real-time localised air quality readings to support data-driven decisions and validate its environmental impact.

Case Study: Lewisham Council

Lewisham Council’s Transport team undertook an ambitious venture to deliver a School Streets programme across the most traffic-congested locations in the borough. Using our unattended CCTV enforcement technology, the Council aimed to reduce traffic volume outside the schools with zero vehicle control and instead favour pedestrians and cyclists during morning and afternoon periods.

The process Outcome

Providing clear and consistent engagement and communication with the community through consultation maps, online survey and face-to-face conversations

Promoting a diverse and inclusive communication strategy

Writing to teachers to help them communicate the value and importance of the programme

Installing 45 ANPR cameras

Introducing vehicle controls to reduce traffic volume and vehicle speed outside 22 schools

CCTV clip reviews and back-office processing

Improved road safety

The safety of children is essential around school roads, and we have seen significant progress in the last decade in ensuring we limit traffic-related accidents. However, road collisions remain one of the leading causes of premature death among children and young people aged 0-15, with 35% of child pedestrians killed or seriously injured during what is typically classified as the ‘school run’.

Using our CCTV technology to control the closure of school roads at particular times, children can actively go to school without fear of being involved in a dangerous accident.

Improved air quality

Approximately 50% of London's emissions come from road vehicles. Toxic air causes thousands of early deaths each year, slowing young lung growth and increasing respiratory illness. Also, children walk closer to the exhausts of idle vehicles on their way to school, particularly in densely populated places. By removing these vehicles from our school gates, children will benefit from cleaner air and associated health implications

Encourage active travel

Since School Streets rolled out, we have seen a significant behaviour change in how people travel to school. Every person should have the right to clean air and be able to walk, cycle, scoot, or wheel to school with the enjoyment of fresh air and the company of their friends.

We recognise that good behaviour change is challenging. Therefore, we carefully develop a programme that consults with the affected individuals to deliver to ensure each party agrees with the intervention.

In total, the interventions reduced 862,500 vehicle movements around school pick-up and drop-off times across the 22 schools. At Holbeach Primary School alone, vehicle movement decreased by 75%. Meanwhile, at Rushey Green Primary School, there was a 32% reduction in vehicle movements.

Emmet Ruxton, a parent at Thorpewood Primary School.

“It’s been transformative. Much less traffic, many more kids riding to school, and you can walk on the road. It’s been great.”

Lawyers Are Responsible: Refusing to defend the indefensible

Lawyers Are Responsible have shaken up the legal world since declaring that, on ethical grounds, they would no longer play by the centuries old ‘cab rank’ rule.

Matt Hutchings KC, who has practised in England & Wales for nearly 30 years, is one of the founders of Lawyers Are Responsible. Here he explains his involvement in what LAR describe as non-violent civil disobedience.

Until last year, I had not been involved in activism. But, like a lot of people, the climate and ecological crises began to cast a shadow over me. I found it enormously frustrating how little of the truth about the mess that we are in was presented in the media. Whereas my experience was that most people, once they appreciate the true facts, see the need to do something urgent about the crises we face.

Background

Barristers’ professional rules include the ‘cab rank rule’, which requires them to take any brief within their areas of practice regardless of whether or not they agree with the cause they are asked to advocate. Effectively, they are obliged to act as hired guns.

The cab rank rule dates from shortly after the British Civil War in the 17th Century. Barristers wear court dress, including a wig and gown, that dates back to the reign of Charles II, also in the 17th Century.

Just before the coronation of King Charles III, the Public Order Act 2023 came into force. You may well have read media reports about the many arrests over the coronation weekend, amid the pageantry.

The birth of Lawyers Are Responsible

Last year, a number of lawyers came together under the banner of “Lawyers Are Responsible”. The headline aims of LAR are: (i) to persuade lawyers not to act in deals that expand fossil fuel infrastructure, the broad context being that the City of London supports 15% of global CO2 emissions and (ii) to provide support for non-violent climate protesters, such as Just Stop Oil, who are subject to increasingly repressive criminal law enforcement as well as demonisation in the right wing press, on TV and on social media.

I helped to draft a ‘declaration of conscience’, by which the signatories pledged to withdraw their professional services from new fossil fuel projects or action against peaceful climate protesters. To date it has been signed by about 180 legal professionals, students and academics.

In view of the fact that barrister signatories were pledging to breach the cab rank rule, the declaration was designed as non-violent civil disobedience (NVCD). Martin Luther King stated in his Letter from Birmingham Jail that NVCD exposes hidden tensions and injustices to the air of national opinion.

The declaration provoked a sizeable reaction from the legal establishment and right-wing press, even before it was published on 27 March. It was leaked; the Chair of the Bar used the occasion of evensong at Temple Church on 22 March to speak against LAR and many legal professionals followed his lead. The Daily Mail led the charge of the right-wing press when they breached a press embargo on 24 March. They published what is known in the trade as a ‘front page hit job’ under the headline, ‘Fury at woke lawyers refusing to prosecute eco warriors’.

This furore provided LAR with many opportunities for media appearances. When we appear on TV, we get the facts about the climate crisis out there, which are not otherwise covered in the media. LAR has also spread the message via Twitter, where we received encouragement from celebrities such as Gary Lineker, and Steven Donziger, the US environmental attorney, who tweeted that, ‘It’s time for the global legal profession to step up and declare it will never help police or industry repress the climate justice movement. Great step. Count me in.’

Following tried and tested tactics, we broke the rules then painstakingly explained to those in positions of power and influence why we did it and sought to find common ground. Personally, what I found was that even very intelligent

lawyers were quick to accept the framing of the issues presented by the Daily Mail. Once in a private conversation, it was relatively easy to dismantle this using critical analysis, standard lawyer’s toolkit. LAR are not ‘woke’ but ‘awake’ to the consequences of breaching the 1.5%C Paris Agreement limit, including mass loss of life and livelihoods and catastrophic harm to human health, among other dire consequences.

In addition, as readers of AirQualityNews will be aware, fossil fuel pollution is responsible for large numbers of human fatalities. Research conducted in 2021 by Harvard University in collaboration with English universities concluded that more than 8 million people worldwide died in 2018 from fossil fuel pollution.

My position in post-Brexit Britain has been to seek to justify my actions based not on international human rights treaties but on our common law history dating back to the English Dissenters movement (including notably Quakers) of the 16th and 17th Centuries, which led to legal precedents in relation to ‘conscientious objection’ on both sides of the Atlantic, culminating in the well-known US Supreme Court decision Clay v United States (1971). One way of viewing the LAR declaration is that the signatories are conscientiously objecting to taking on specific briefs.

Just over a month after their front page article, on 27 April the Daily Mail published an article under the headline ‘Green light for woke lawyers’ which reported that, at a Bar Council Debate, the Head of the Bar Council’s Ethics Committee, Stephen Kenny KC, had accepted our submission that our professional rules permit us to object to taking on work on

conscientious grounds.

On 17 May, the Bar Standards Board issued formal decisions confirming that barristers will not face any regulatory action over signing the declaration. This is symbolically important, since it encourages other lawyers to take a stand.

The next phase

The next phase of the campaign includes turning LAR into an international movement of lawyers, centred in the global north, refusing to act in support of new fossil fuel projects or against non-violent climate protesters. Lawyers in Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Australia and Canada have already made contact with us and are looking to follow our lead.

We also envisage a wave of protest actions targeting top City law firms that do substantial amounts of work for fossil fuel companies, modelled on the successful anti-apartheid campaigns of the 1980s.

On 10 May Law Students for Climate Accountability published a detailed report on the UK legal industry’s ties to fossil fuel companies entitled ‘The Carbon Circle’ which was covered in the Evening Standard under the headline ‘London law firms facilitated £1.48 trillion for fossil fuel companies’ (over the five year period 2018 – 2022).

LAR have written a letter to the senior and managing partners of Allen & Overy, which we have published on Twitter, and have stood outside their offices, handing out leaflets and engaging lawyers in conversations as they entered the building. Watch this space for news of progress on that one.

Jenny Jones, Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Green Party peer and long-time critic of Westminster, the UK’s Clean Air (Human Rights) Bill architect talks to Martin Guttridge-Hewitt about career politicians, inequality as an environmental threat, and her far-reaching legislative proposal.

‘The one thing that makes being appointed [to the House of Lords] bearable is that I can shout across the room at government, and they have to sit politely and listen, however rude I am. And that’s much better than shouting at the TV.’

According to a recent YouGov poll, seven in ten people view UK politicians negatively. Jenny Jones, Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb FSA, can empathise. The Green Party peer, who until 2019 was their only representative in Westminster’s upper chamber, has a well-earned reputation for talking straight and holding few punches when expressing frustrations at the way Britain is managed by Downing Street. Or, in her eyes, mismanaged.

Entering politics in 1988 when she was ‘finally persuaded’ to join the Greens after a lengthy spell fundraising for the cause, her advocacy for environmentalism, sustainability, and localism casts her as one of the leading voices for climate action in Britain. Over the course of her career, she has regularly backed ideas considered radical at the time, which have later been accepted by more mainstream thinkers.

For example, the right for everyone in the country to breathe clean air. As campaigners hope will be protected with the passing of Ella’s Law, a far-reaching piece of legislature

that looks to bring the UK in line with World Health Organisation recommended maximum limits on various forms of emissions, including PM2.5 fine particulate matter, nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide.

Named after Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, the first Briton to have air pollution listed on their death certificate, aged nine, it was introduced to parliament in May 2022 by Baroness Jones. Winning first place in the House of Lords Ballot on private members’ bills, it went on to pass the chamber’s third and final reading in November.

“Ella's Law: I was anxious about getting it through right until the end. Then I suddenly thought: ‘Of course, who is going to stand up and say I want dirty air?'”

‘Way back in 2000, I had just started on the newly formed London Assembly, and someone said: ‘Oh, look, London’s going to break all these EU laws about air pollution, we should do something about this,’ Baroness Jones replies when asked when she first realised how important cleaning up the atmosphere was.

‘We approached Defra quite a few times over the next couple of years. And they always said, this is a non-issue. You don’t

have to worry about it, it’s not real.

‘Of course, it fitted with the Green Party agenda. I mean, probably at that time we weren’t thinking about electric cars, but if you improve air quality it automatically improves the environment, reduces traffic, and therefore emissions. These are obviously big things for greens,’ she continues. ‘Really, though, we’ve been talking about similar things for 50 years now. As the Green Party, we just had our 50th anniversary, and in that time, a similar point has always been made… humans are damaging our planet, our precious planet.’

“Both Labour and the Tories like this idea of a silver bullet. And Al Gore said, there’s no such thing as a silver bullet, there’s silver buckshot”

Ella’s Law – or the Clean Air (Human Rights) Bill – is making good progress and awaiting a second reading in the House of Commons. The proposed legislation essentially creates requirements for any new development to be considered within the context of resulting air pollution and sets much tighter limits on acceptable levels of pollutants. The fact it has so far been received favourably initially came as a surprise.

haven’t done anything like that yet, and the more pressure we put on them by MPs signing the Early Day Motion and stuff like that, the more likely it is that elements of it will get through,’ she continues, citing Green Party leader, MP Caroline Lucas as vital to ongoing efforts in the Commons.

For Baroness Jones, though, none of this is indicative of a UK political system that works properly for the electorate, or the environment. We ask whether she feels concerned that issues such as air pollution and wider climate crisis require us as a society and country to look at, invest in, and stick to medium and long-term solutions, which do not naturally lend themselves to four-year political cycles. The status quo exists because those who win power often look to undo the work of predecessors as a matter of course, regardless of impact.

‘If you've got principles, you can look at everything that's been done over the past four years, eight years, you know, 20 years, and think: ‘Ah, that was really good. We'll keep that.’ Or: ‘That was really shit, we'll throw that out’,’ says Baroness Jones, who believes the current administration is ‘incapable of seeing any value in anyone else’s ideas’. And that’s not the only problem. ‘Both Labour and the Tories like this idea of a silver bullet. And Al Gore said, there’s no such thing

‘I thought it would get more pushback, because it is so tough and it’s got so many measures for the government,’ Baroness Jones explains. ‘I was anxious about getting it through right until the end. Then I suddenly thought: ‘Of course, who is going to stand up and say I want dirty air?’ Really, there wasn’t much they could do because even with all these new responsibilities, the Bill makes sense. You know, it’s coherent.

‘Normally the most you can hope for with a private member's bill, especially something this big and this tough, is that the government will actually look at it properly, then take elements out and implement those in their own way. They

as a silver bullet, there’s silver buckshot, but the problem of climate change is so huge you can’t find one thing to fix it.’

Admitting that ending the use of fossil fuels would be a good place to ‘start fixing it’, Jones is also clear that understanding wider issues contributing to the climate crisis is essential. Stopping the extraction of, and our reliance on, oil, is a large calibre weapon, then. But pushing for a more equal society is also significant. ‘You can't let people fall into poverty, because then they're not worried about saving the planet, they’re panicking about feeding kids and getting their kids shoes. You have to understand that you've got to take everybody with you.’

Calderdale #CleanAirSchools Campaign

Evotech’s year long study on classroom CO2 levels highlights the need for better ventilation in schools

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Living Green Walls: the future of urban green infrastructure?

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In the most recent Air Quality News Procurement Guide, Martin Guttridge-Hewitt explored the concept of ‘greening’ in which the health of urban spaces can be improved by introducing flora in innovative ways. In this article, Dr Sanja Potgieter-Vermaark of Manchester Metropolitan University a panellist at our recent Manchester conference – discusses her recent work with Living green walls

Urban green infrastructure (UGI) is a network of green spaces, water, and other natural systems, which has multiple functions and can provide direct and indirect enhancements to urban spaces. The effectiveness of UGIs to mitigate the risk of living in urban spaces with significantly reduced green spaces, has been researched widely. There is evidence of health benefits due to improved wellbeing, increased physical activity, and reduction in exposure to pollution (air and noise) and high temperatures. Further benefits include reduced flooding risks, social cohesion, protection of biodiversity, and cost savings.

Natural England launched the Green Infrastructure Framework in January 2023, to help towns and cities turn greener and aims to increase the green cover in urban residential areas to 40%. Greater Manchester has already moved towards increasing UGI (Manchester Green and Blue Infrastructure Strategy) of which implementation started in 2021 and is to be completed by 2025, during which it is estimated that a total of £250 million will have been invested in GI-related environmental improvements. The Greater Manchester council authority’s blue and green infrastructure framework highlights the successful implementation of urban green infrastructure and nature-based solutions in a complex multi stakeholder environment and is a notable example of how local planning authorities in the UK can create climate resilient areas for their communities.

One of the key branches of UGIs for densely populated urban areas is Living Green Walls (LGW). They can provide similar benefits to urban trees such as increases in biodiversity or localised air cooling but are more suited to urban areas where trees may not grow well due to issues such as narrow roads, lack of space, or soil compaction and underground utilities. They have been used and researched for a wide range of applications, such as water filtration & storm water management, acoustic damping, biodiversity & habitat creation, thermal insulation, and air quality management.

There are a variety of types, however LGW typically consists of a modular facade structure which acts as a container for a growth medium. The growth medium can be natural such as mineral/organic soils or completely synthetic structures which use textile matting as the rooting medium. The growth medium and high-density planting provide better performance characteristics (e.g Thermal insulation) than some of the lighter weight versions of UGIs like Green facades; which are typically comprised of trailing and climbing plants such as Hedera Helix (English Ivy).

Modular LGW can offer bespoke performance characteristics that can be achieved through the selection of plant species, substrates, and digital technologies. This information can be used within the assessment reports required for environmental reporting and mitigation schemes within the built environment sector such as the Building Research Establishment

[ Illustration of an “I Want Plants” Hyvert living wall ]

Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM).

Environmental remediation features for the built environment sector are especially relevant for local planning authorities as all public buildings now require an ‘Excellent’ BREEAM accreditation score and any new builds with a construction value greater than £500,000 must achieve a BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ rating.

Specific air quality benefits of living walls:

One of the key areas being studied is how LGW can be utilised to improve air quality in Manchester

• How do plants improve air quality?

The main way the pollutants are captured by LGW is via deposition of the fine particles and gases onto the leaves’ surfaces as air passes through the foliage. There are a multitude of physical and environmental factors which influence how the LGW performs. Plant traits and design characteristics such as large surface area, high leaf area density, and foliage longevity are key direct influences, whereas environmental factors such as humidity, wind speed and street canyon ratio affect how the pollutants interact with the foliage and localised air pollution concentrations.

Measuring living wall performance

Measuring the air quality performance of LGW is a complex task due to the array of variables involved, this means a combination of lab studies and in-situ research is required to provide contextually relevant information about LGW.

• In-situ digital monitoring

One of the ways we measured the effectiveness of LGW is by integrating high performance air sensors amongst the foliage to get proxy measurements of its performance when compared to an array of ARUN (Automatic Urban and Rural Network) air quality sensors measurements in the city of Manchester.

Continuous air quality monitoring systems can be advantageous not only to measure the effectiveness of new building adaptations, but they can also be installed when a building is undergoing construction; this can evidence that developers and contractors are compliant with considerate construction schemes. This is especially relevant as the construction sector is responsible for over 30% of PM10 emissions.

A study to assess the effectiveness of LGW to improve local air quality is being trialed with a joint venture between Bruntwood group and Trafford Council for their regeneration of Altrincham town centre. This urban redevelopment has been designed to actively enhance work life balance and improve the wellbeing of its communities by improving local air quality, biophilia and biodiversity. The LGW used for the trial is the patented HYVERT system designed by urban greening company; I Want Plants.

This transparent data approach can help build trust between stakeholders, which is especially relevant when partnerships span different priorities and sectors.

• Chemical analysis

Measuring the mass concentration of airborne particulate matter is important for overall indication of health risks, however it does not provide the full picture as to how harmful the material is. The chemical composition of particulate matter can have considerable influence on health risks.

Biomonitoring is an effective technique that can be used to measure an area's pollutant composition. It can involve performing chemical analysis on vegetation within an area to see what pollutants have been absorbed by the biomass.

This approach provides a good representation of spatial and temporal data. E.g A deciduous tree loses foliage each year so any pollutants found would have to be within that period.

As HYVERT LGW often spans large swaths of a building's surface and is regularly maintained on a monthly basis, the wall can be utilised as a means of biomonitoring across urban street canyons with detailed temporal scales. The buildup of fine particulate matter on the leaves surface enables the HYVERT LGW to be chemically profiled for the presence of potentially harmful elements such as Cu, Co, Ni, Fe, Pb, and Cr. These elements are preferential to analyse as they are often found in quantifiable concentrations in particulate matter and are from common pollution sources such as combustion and traffic.

We profiled the HYVERT LGW biomass using XRF (X-Ray Fluorescence), to see if this rapid analytical method could compliment results already obtained by traditional analytical methods such as inductively coupled plasma with mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) could be applicable for urban biomonitoring. We found that although the XRF method was not able to achieve the same limits of detection as ICP-MS it was still highly effective, fast, non-destructive, and a greener screening method for demonstrating the benefits of the HYVERT LGW.

As LGW increases in abundance due to UGI investment this alternative low-cost biomonitoring approach can fill the gaps in particulate matter composition data and could be used to supplement continuous digital monitoring systems used in the urban areas.

Policy synergies:

As the new Biodiversity Net Gain policy kicks off in November 2023, new developments will need to demonstrate an increase in net gain by a minimum of 10%. For small sites below a 5000 m2 footprint, the net gain must be created directly on the plot, which is particularly challenging for built-up urban areas.

Vertical green infrastructure suits this niche, and thus presents an opportunity to combine regional initiatives such as Manchester's Clean Air strategy with the larger national government policies such Biodiversity Net Gain, by selecting hardy pollution capturing plants along with localised species which provide food sources and habitats for wildlife.

Other built environment policies also require a multifunctional retrofit solution. The new Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) requirements mean that from 1st April 2023, new and existing leases for commercial properties are moving from a Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) rating of “F” to “E”, with all properties being required to be at an “B” standard by 2030.

There are a range of solutions for retrofitting older buildings, but external wall insulation typically provides the highest EPC increase, limits any disruption to the interior usage and does not reduce internal floor space.

By investing in energy efficiency technologies like HYVERT LGW at an early stage the initial capital expenditure of the LGW can be offset by the gains made through overall energy usage reduction which ranges between 16-31%, along with the increases of property and land value which average 2-2.5%.

Ongoing research is being conducted as a part of an Innovate UK funded Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Manchester Metropolitan University and industry partner I Want Plants to demonstrate how their high performance HYVERT LGW system can be used, tested, and enhanced for the myriad of UGI applications.

The challenge of improving indoor air quality in social housing

Journalist Emily Whitehouse speaks to Rochdale Boroughwide Housing about their efforts to improve the standards of social housing and the associated quality of indoor air.

In 2021, when increased inflation rates began to squeeze household budgets, local authorities and housing organisations hit headlines as they began to better insulate properties with the aim of keeping peoples energy bills to a minimum and also helping to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. However, people on a low-income that live in social housing always seem to be forgotten about. Despite air being invisible, should it become toxic the effects can be fatal.

An example of this is the harrowing death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak, who lost his life in December 2020 due to being exposed to an excessive amount of damp and mould in his home in Rochdale, Greater Manchester. Once the coroner exposed the reason behind the toddler’s death in November 2022, an influx of similar cases

surfaced, with England’s Regulator of Social Housing stating that up to 160,000 social homes in the country have been left with ‘notable’ damp and mould problems, and a further 8,000 so severe that they ‘pose a serious and immediate risk to health’.

As a result, Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH), the organisation who

left the two-year-old and his family to live in catastrophic conditions – in 2017 Awaab’s father made a complaint to the company about the amount of mould that was beginning to appear on the walls of their flat but, was merely met with the response to ‘paint over it’ – have had to implement new strategies and recruit new members of staff to

ensure the situation is rectified.

The former interim chief executive of RBH, Gareth Swarbrick, was sacked last November and replaced by Yvonne Arrowsmith who has now been tasked with turning the beleaguered organisation around. Similarly, RBH employed Kevin Brady last month as its new Chair of the Board, stating he is ‘vital’ in helping the organisation ‘rebuild trust with tenants, communities and partner organisations.’

Alongside being quick to appoint new members of staff, the organisation explain they have implemented a new recovery plan with an overarching focus on what can only be described as putting tenants needs first through assertion that social homes will be frequently monitored by their newly appointed damp and mould taskforce, which cost the company £2m. A spokesperson from RBH said: ‘We have set out a comprehensive improvement and recovery plan to make sure that we deliver the safe and comfortable homes that our tenants deserve. Our plan has five key themes including, home, tenant involvement and empowerment, governance, rebuilding trust and confidence and lessons learnt.’

In addition to laying out their

recovery plan, RBH informed Air QualityNews that at a recent board meeting, the company set out plans to invest a further £45 million into existing properties over the next five years and £1.2 million on improving ventilation at the Freehold estate alone, which is where Awaab and his family lived.

However, little reassurance has been taken by some with regard to the plans outlined by RBH. Chris Jones, chief executive for Acio, the European market leader in home life safety, launched a technology platform known as HomeLINK in 2020 which helps to monitor damp and mould issues in properties. Chris said, with audible concern in his voice, ‘It is shocking that a child had to die before authorities and organisations involved within the housing sector publicly acknowledged that it is not right for people to be left to live in poor conditions.

‘The reality is that 20-30% of homes have mould in them and there have more than likely been previous cases where courts have failed to side with the people affected.’

Chris explains his company produces environmental sensors through their HomeLINK platform which help to pinpoint the cause of mould and prevent it from reoccurring. Chris said: ‘When we launched the environmental home sensors landlords and residents weren’t thinking about damp and mould issues, but deep down, our company knew it was always going to be a problem, not just with damp and mould, but with breathing in harmful chemicals such as PM 2.5 and CO2.’

The hard work the Acio team have devoted to helping to combat toxic air from essentially making some social housing uninhabitable has been nothing short of exceptional. Not only have they created sensors that can detect whether a property is at risk of developing damp and mould issues, but Chris notes the company have gone ‘one step further’ as they have developed an algorithm, known as SVE which consists of six factors, that can make a prediction about the likely underlying causes of a mould issue. For example, if a sensor is placed in the bathroom, the SVE will inform you which factor is most likely to be causing a damp problem, such as insufficient ventilation.

Chris tells us technology is ultimately the key to helping combat

toxic air within homes. He also notes that sending out surveys to frequently assess the condition of local authorities and other companies housing stock – a method that has been implemented by councils across the UK – is both costly and time-consuming.

‘We looked at a business case where we figured out that one and a half stock condition surveys per home will cost the same as continuous insight monitoring for 10 years’, Chris said. ‘Although the cost of buying sensors themselves is quite expensive, they are offered to landlords at a discounted price and the subscription fee for a sensor is around four pounds a year’.

Going forward, Chris states Acio will continue to support social housing landlords as the companies ‘biggest goal’ at the minute is tackling the damp and mould issue. It is critical that people living in social housing are not left worrying about their health. Through the use of technology, new strategies such as those that have been adopted by RBH, along with the new guidelines issued by the government known as ‘Awaab’s Law’ which were announced in February, should all have a positive impact upon improved living conditions for those living in social housing. Time will tell if the rhetoric is matched by improvement metrics.

Mothers of Invention: How Moms Clean Air Force are influencing the air quality landscape in America

Mums, moms and mothers are famously active in demanding better air quality around the world. We have Mums for Lungs in the UK, in India there is Warrior Moms but the undisputed mummy of them all is Moms Clear Air Force in the USA. It is the oldest, with 1.5 million members it is certainly the largest and you’d be hard pressed to find another group as influential.

AirQualityNews reporter Paul Day spoke with co-founder Dominique Browning to discover how this collective of activists came together.

Your background is in publishing but have you always been environmentally aware?

Yes, for a long time I’ve been very worried about global warming so when I decided I was done with magazines I wanted to get into the environmental space, but nobody would interview me for a job because ‘what did I know?’ I was a magazine person, right? So I started writing a column for Environmental Defense Fund about their work, going around and interviewing people about ‘what do you do?’ And ‘how are you solving these problems?’

When was this?

This was right after the failure of the Waxman-Markey Bill [aka: American Clean Energy and Security Act 2009] and a lot of research was finding that one of the big problems was that nobody was explaining to regular voters why they needed to care about climate change .

So I was interviewing people about their environmental work and every single time I would get to the end of the interview and say, ‘Okay, that sounds really interesting but I don’t really understand what you just said to me. I’m educated and intelligent but you are using jargon, inside speak. We need to communicate here.’

Around that time blogging was the

new thing and I was noticing all these so called ‘mommy bloggers’ out there. And they were extremely concerned about toxic chemicals and about trying to save energy and being green.

So putting all of that together, I thought, let’s try to harness all of the energy that mothers have around protecting their children and let’s use language we can all understand to explain what the problem is here. And that was the genesis of Moms Clean Air Force.

Were you a mother yourself at this point?

I have two sons but they were grown up and gone out of the house and I felt like, ‘oh, I can still be a mother here.’

Did you find it difficult to bring all these people together?

It was a couple of other mothers on the board of Environmental Defense Fund, who heard me and got excited about it and two of them, Hanne Grantham and Sue Mandel became my co-founders. And then the General Counsel at EDF also really got it. And so we started brainstorming about how to build up a membership that would engage on these issues.

And that was the green light but it took a while to get there. Now, in my complete naivety, I thought we were going to be able to start

by fighting for climate legislation but I had underestimated the depths of depression, politically, that the environmental country had fallen into after Waxman-Markey. There was no hope of climate legislation and politicians were losing races, because they were expressing concern about climate change.

Then one of my co-founders here said, you know, we’ve been working to try to get mercury regulations from coal-fired power plants in place, and you could work on that. And that was the second green light, because I remember when I was pregnant being told don’t eat tuna fish, or other large fatty fish because it’s full of mercury. But I never knew that mercury came from coal-fired power plant emissions raining down.

Once we started talking about

that, and connecting the dots between coal plants and mercury and carbon emissions, it opened up the possibility of things we could talk about. It drew a lot of people in because every mother with decent health care is told, ‘don’t eat fatty fish’ and everyone could relate to it. So that was when I realised how to find personal stories.

At what point did you decide to focus just on air?

My focus was climate change and it grew into air because of the understanding that if you get air regulations right you do a lot to cut carbon emissions, or methane and other VOC emissions pretty rapidly as well.

There’s a page on your website about ‘Big Wins’, what was your first Big

Win, where you thought ‘I can’t believe we just did that’?

Getting the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards passed the first time around? It had really been log-jammed and we were able to bring to the table a lot of unlikely partners, including evangelists who wanted to engage on air quality to protect unborn babies and business concerns who didn’t want it to be seen as aligning themselves with poisoning our food. And Mercury is a particularly pernicious toxin so helping get that across the line was an enormous win.

People might say that with one and a half million mums, they can’t all be doing something but you’ve come up with a concept called ‘naptime activism’ a way that people can do things with a minimum amount of effort..

The idea is to make it really easy to engage. Even if all you do is point and click and sign a petition, that matters because by law EPA has to collect all those signatures. And it also means that people are reading our message, and they’re reading the information. And even if they do nothing, they’re being educated.

What are the big battles you’re fighting at the moment?

Right now, we have a tsunami of EPA regulations coming out, not only in the classic ‘cars and trucks and power sector’, but petrochemical regulations are finally starting to come out and those have been a really long time coming. We’ve got generations of people who have suffered terrible abuse at the hands of the petrochemical industry in the Gulf

[ EPA Clean School Bus Awards event at John Lewis Elementary School in Washington, D.C. on October 26, 2022.

Photo: © Sarah Silbiger for Moms Clean Air Force ]

What’s your relationship like with the EPA, do they find you slightly annoying or do they appreciate what you’re doing?

I think we were the first group of regular people who started to understand how EPA works and what they need to hear, and to push them to show that we really care. They just go make these rules and nobody’s paying attention. So our relationship is constantly being calibrated, right? Because there are some rules where we say that’s not good enough. And there are other rules where we say bravo!

Excuse my ignorance by does your relationship with the EPA alter depending on who’s in the White House?

That’s not ignorant at all! I was shocked myself at how radically EPA can be altered by a president’s selection of administrator. Under the Trump administration, we spent four years fighting every step of the way. In fact, we had an Earth Day Celebration under Trump’s EPA, and I wrote an op-ed for the New York Times saying ‘I’m not celebrating I’m fighting.’

The Inflation Reduction Act must be something you couldn’t have dreamt

about under Trump…

It’s a huge investment in a lot of things that could be extremely beneficial to cutting what I call climate pollution. For example it includes a major investment in electric school buses, which seems small if you look at like three buses in this town and five buses in that town but that’s one of the largest public transportation fleets in the country. So we’ve been working with communities to help them apply to get this funding and understand what benefits can come of electrifying a bus fleet.

Did Biden campaign with the Act in his manifesto or is that something he developed?

He campaigned hard acknowledging that we had a huge climate problem and secondly he was promising to do serious things about it, innovating a kind of all-of-government approach. It wouldn’t just be the EPA, but the Department of Energy and Department of Transportation, and even the Defense Department, would all have to be more climate aware. So it was very much a part of his promise to voters.

Is it possible that a change of political regime could undo things

very quickly?

In some cases, yes. Mercury is a very good example, because the previous administration tried to basically take away the entire reason to regulate mercury. So you lose a lot of time trying to rebuild from that. And you lose good people who are not replaced by an administration that doesn’t want a strong EPA.

At the same time, the overall trajectory is towards electrification and towards clean energy. You look at Texas alone, which seems on the face of it, like the most retrograde of states, and yet, they are one of the biggest suppliers of wind energy. So, you know, the market starts to change, investments have been made, and those don’t get rolled back so easily.

Is there anything you want to add?

You know, I do this more than anything else as a mother and every week we have meetings and I hear from people I work with about their triumphs, where they’ve been, their appointments to mayoral boards, whatever. I have a grandchild now who is seven years old and I look at him and think when he’s my age, what kind of world is he going to have? And what can I do to try to make that better?

[ President Barak Obama with Dominique Browning. Photo: © Pete Souza ]

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Today the company has two groups, the Products group and the Engineering Services group.

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Whatever your air quality or transport decarbonisation plans, Marston Holdings can help at every step with market leading solutions incorporating:

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Speak to a member of the team to find out more.