This campaign encourages daily steps towards reducing air pollution which is estimated to contribute to between 26,000 and 38,000 deaths in the UK each year. Poor air quality is particularly harmful to vulnerable groups like children, pregnant women, older people, and those with health conditions affecting the lungs and heart.
Doing something to improve air quality can often feel as being beyond the reach for individuals to tackle, but everyday activities such as how we heat our homes and how we travel have a significant impact on the quality of the air. Making small changes individually or collectively can help to improve local air quality.
To mark Clean Air Day we want to flag up some of our initiatives which offer advice and encourage involvement to both employees and residents:
- our sustainable travel team promotes modes of travel such as walking, cycling and scooting to reduce emissions and air pollution. They also work to make electric cars available for our employees to use while carrying out their jobs. And they work on active travel masterplans to promote sustainable travel – we’re currently consulting in Belper, Glossop and Ilkeston
- our Bus Service Improvement Plan encourages us to make more of our journeys by public transport.
- 4 of our schools in Amber Valley are having the roads closed outside their premises at dropping off and picking up times to mark Clean Air Day
- our Live Life Better service supports lifestyle changes, like quitting smoking, that help both health and air quality
- our Energy Champions are there to help with your ideas for reducing air pollution
- our Markham Vale Business Park pioneers green changes that help reduce air pollution – such as the forthcoming Gridserve Electric car charging facility