Clean Air Day 2021: Educate to Protect Our Future Generations

Clean Air Day is the UK’s largest air pollution campaign, engaging thousands of people at hundreds of events, and reaching millions more through the media. Every year, air pollution causes up to 36,000 deaths in the UK.  The World Health Organisation and the UK Government recognise that air pollution is the largest environmental health risk we face today. Poor air quality causes both heart and lung diseases, is linked to low birth weight and children’s lung development and may even contribute to mental health issues. Therefore, this Clean Air Day the focus is on educating and informing in order to protect our future generations.

As a renewable energy provider we believe it is your responsibility to educate and inform your staff. Some ideas on how to achieve this are;

• Improve employees understanding of air pollution.
• Build awareness of how air pollution affects our health.
• Explain the easy actions we can all do to tackle air pollution, helping to protect the environment and our health.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, business travel and the commuting of employees to and from the office was a major source of air pollution for most businesses. While home-working has become the norm for many companies and business travel has somewhat ceased temporarily, there are still proactive actions companies can incorporate now and in any return-to-work plans.

Consider whether any of the following might be prevalent in your business:

• Health and wellbeing – the air pollution inside and outside of office buildings, factories or other corporate workplaces, where your employees and/or contractors work day-to-day.
• Training – Have a selection of employees trained on eco-driving and anti-idling.
• Employee commuting – How many of your employees that will drive to work using an ICE combustion engine?
• Business travel – Can you reduce the amount of air and road travel for business meetings or work-related events?

For Clean Air Day itself you can encourage walking or cycling to work, flexible working, working from home or even car share. The official website has lots of resources including downloadable, printable pledge cards you can hand out to your employees and ask them to make a pledge such as walk more in an effort to help reduce air pollution!

One of the biggest changes you can make as a business is to switch to a renewable energy provider who is committed to helping reach net zero 2030.

Click here for a low cost no obligation renewable energy quote!