• Website features unique tools to help Londoners reduce emissions and exposure to air pollution • Resources for schools and businesses so they can reduce their own air pollution footprint, with case studies and informative technical guides
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has launched the capital’s official ‘Cleaner Air’ website - www.cleanerairforlondon.org.uk
The site includes personalised tools to help Londoners, young people and businesses to play their part in reducing emissions and their exposure to air pollution. It features a raft of data from monitoring stations across the capital, as well as important, yet easy steps people can take such as walking or cycling to work, or making more informed choices about the routes they use to improve air quality and reduce exposure to harmful pollutants.
Recognising the powerful role that businesses can play in improving air quality, the site includes resources such as case studies and technical guides to help businesses reduce their emissions by replacing old boilers, improving deliveries and encouraging staff to travel in a more sustainable way.
It also features sections that are aimed specifically at young people, with information that focuses on some of the sources and effects of air pollution in London past and present, as well as educational classroom activities for parents and teachers.
The Mayor, working with London’s boroughs, Transport for London and other key stakeholders, has made significant progress in improving air quality in London. Emissions of NOx (Oxides of Nitrogen) have been reduced by 20% and PM10 by 15% with the Mayor introducing tough new Low Emission Zone standards, cleaner buses and retiring 3,000 of the oldest, most polluting taxis from the capital’s road network.
New research released by the Mayor shows that his measures to improve London’s air quality has resulted in the number of Londoners living in areas exceeding EU limit values of NO2 to have more than halved since 2008. However, air pollution does remain a major challenge for a global city with a rising population and 1.7 million Londoners continue to live in areas exceeding the limit values for NO2 but that is projected to decrease to around 300,000 Londoners by 2020.
The Mayor said: “Real progress has been made in improving London’s air quality in recent years, but as an expanding global city that is grappling with population growth, there are some big challenges ahead. Londoners and the capital’s businesses have a hugely important role to play in reducing emissions and thanks to this new website for the first time we have the tools to help do this. I encourage everyone who’s passionate about improving the air we breathe to log on and check out what ‘Cleaner Air for London’ has to offer.”
Notes to editors
1. To find out more about air quality in London please visit www.cleanerairforlondon.org.uk
2. The Mayor has outlined a strategy of measures to tackle air pollution, to find out more please see the Mayor's Air Quality Strategy:
www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/MAQS%20Executive%20Summary%20FINAL.pdf
3. In February 2013, the Mayor announced a package of additional measures to be delivered in his second including a new Ultra Low Emission Zone in central London from 2020, the retrofit of an additional 24,000 homes and public buildings and a new Mayor’s Air Quality Fund. The fund will provide match-funding for boroughs and partners that produce innovative new schemes and projects designed to improve air quality. £6 million of funding will be initially available from 2013/14 to 2015/16, with the expectation this will continue to £20 million over the next 10 years.
4. To reduce emissions from transport the Mayor is:
•Cleaning up London's bus fleet; •Capping the age of London's taxi and private hire fleet; •Setting new and tighter standards for the London Low Emission Zone; •Encouraging the uptake of electric and other low emission vehicles; •Investing record amounts in cycling.
5. To reduce emissions from buildings and developments:
•Improving energy efficiency in over 90,000 homes through the RE:NEW programme and 400 public buildings through the RE:FIT programme, saving tonnes of oxides of nitrogen and carbon dioxide; •Making construction and demolition sites cleaner to improve local air pollution; •Embedding air quality within the planning system.
6. The Mayor has announced his intention to create the world’s first Ultra Low Emission Zone in central London, in a move that he believes will deliver dramatic benefits in air quality and provide a major spur for the further development and mass take-up of zero and low emission vehicles. Transport for London will take recommendations for the ULEZ to the Mayor later this year with informal public consultation commencing in 2014.
7. Local authorities are responsible under the Local Air Quality Management (LAQM) regulations for monitoring and reporting on the air pollution in their localities and producing action plans to improve air quality. To find out what actions individual boroughs are taking, please visit www.cleanerairforlondon.org.uk/about-us/what-boroughs-are-doing 8. NO2 (Nitrogen Dioxide) is a toxic gas which increases the likelihood of birth defects, affects lung growth and function in children and has other adverse health impacts, especially in vulnerable groups such as the elderly.
9. Particulate Matter (PM) can also affect health. The equivalent of 4,300 deaths a year in London are caused by long-term exposure to PM2.5. In 2012 the World Health Organisation declared diesel exhaust fumes a Class 1 carcinogen linked to lung, bladder and oesophagal cancer.