Global Clean Air

Why companies need to invest in clean delivery amid pandemic online shopping

By Anne Marie Borrego / Published: July 10, 2020

This is the third in a series of Global Clean Air blogs on COVID-19 and air pollution. EDF scientists and program experts will share data about pollution levels during quarantine from a local and global perspective, and provide recommendations for governments and companies to Rebuild Better.

COVID-19 means a lot more online shopping, which means a lot more delivery trucks that could contribute to a lot more air pollution in our neighborhoods.

As coronavirus shut down the economy, some regions saw a drop in air pollution. But as economic activity picks up, so does pollution — and if the habit of doing more shopping online persists, we could end up with worse air quality from fleets of diesel-powered delivery trucks.

At-home delivery is contributing to growing demand for freight movement, which is driving increased consumption of fossil fuels, especially diesel, and worsening air pollution. In fact, Amazon’s carbon emissions climbed 15% in the last year alone — even before coronavirus — due to increased sales.

During this pandemic, at-home shoppers are deluged with purchases arriving by cardboard box, each delivered by polluting trucks. Our new video encourages consumers to let companies know they’d like them to make the last mile of delivery to come from a zero-emissions vehicle, cleaner shipping options and local delivery lockers. “Getting a finished product from the factory to your door, has costs beyond the price tag. More trucks are making more trips, hurting the planet, and our health.”

Along with Amazon, other leading last-mile delivery companies include FedEx, UPS, XPO, USPS and Walmart. While startups have dominated the zero-emissions last-mile space, household names are starting to pilot new solutions, including an order for 10,000 electric delivery vehicles by UPS, and an all-electric box truck by Daimler.

The economy is slowly bouncing back in some areas. Streets are crowded with pedestrians, bikers, cars and trucks as some businesses open. But while it’s comforting to see signs of “normalcy” returning in some regions, our health and our planet depend on our ability to find innovative solutions for building back, better.

The pandemic reinforced the fact that the risks of air pollution are real and personal, and that our health and our ability to fight respiratory diseases like COVID-19, depends on clean air. Stakeholders across the globe are paying more attention than ever before to air pollution, and demanding leadership and action not just from government, but also from the private sector.

Delivery: a big air pollution challenge, but also opportunity

Aileen Nowlan, Senior Manager, EDF+Business

As companies get back on their feet, business leaders can integrate strategies for reducing air pollution into their already existing climate goals by focusing on pollution from the last mile of delivery. Because right now, air pollution is impacting their bottom line, employee health and the economy — all the places we can least afford to be hurt.

Many leading companies have made public climate commitments — now, they’re busy designing strategies for meeting them. Fortunately, because poor air quality and climate change share many common sources, many of the solutions for reducing climate pollution can also decrease local air pollution. Using zero-emissions shipping will help companies meet their climate targets, while also improving public health, especially in some of our nation’s most vulnerable communities.

This period of rebuilding is the perfect opportunity for businesses to collaborate on zero-emissions shipping and test out innovations like e-cargo loading zones in cities. And some companies already are — like DHL, which recently launched an e-cargo bike trial in Miami to reduce both congestion and pollution.

Business leaders rose to the immense and immediate challenge of protecting the health of their employees and communities amid the pandemic. This same leadership needs to be sustained and extended to how companies approach climate change and air pollution.

Air pollution is a financial and reputational risk

Air pollution costs the global economy $225 billion dollars every year in lost labor income.

Poor air quality poses a risk to employee health — with coughs, sore throats, and asthma attacks likely to become more frequent. This all leads to more sick days — air pollution in central London is shown to cause the equivalent of over 650,000 sick days each year. Cities that that have severe air pollution problems will increasingly be seen as less desirable places to work and live — thereby negatively impacting talent recruitment. EDF scientists have been working on advancements in hyperlocal air pollution sensors, which are providing incredibly detailed insights about specific facilities, roads or neighborhoods and how air quality may change at those locations over the course of a day, week or year. We can now pinpoint hotspots, examine their causes, and develop solutions tailored to each city — or, in some cases, each intersection. As localized insights make pollution personal, companies will be called to account for their pollution.

Data from EDF’s hyperlocal air pollution monitoring in London have been used to map the city’s air pollution at a street level.

This was originally posted on EDF Business.

Posted in Health / Authors: aborrego / Comments are closed

Why now is the moment for cities around the world to act decisively on air pollution

By Sarah Vogel / Published: June 30, 2020

Sarah Vogel, Ph.D., is Vice President for Health.

This is the second in a series of Global Clean Air blogs on COVID-19 and air pollution. EDF scientists and program experts will share data about pollution levels during quarantine from a local and global perspective, and provide recommendations for governments and companies to Rebuild Better.

New COVID-19 air quality/ transportation measures in Bogotá, Colombia.

Around the world, we’ve seen dramatic improvement in air quality as a result of the response to COVID-19. While it’s come from an artificial and unwanted brake on the global economy, it’s drawn renewed attention to the devastating impacts of outdoor air pollution.

As many large cities around the world emerge from lockdown, city authorities need to act decisively to prevent air pollution rebounding and even exceeding pre-COVID-19 levels. That was the conclusion of participants in a “Clear Skies to Clean Air” webinar I moderated last week by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development World Wildlife Fund and Environmental Defense Fund, in collaboration with the World Bank.

The improvements in air quality seen during the COVID-19 lockdown have shown individuals and policymakers what is possible and could open the door to reinvigorated efforts to address pollution.

London and Bogotá demonstrate clean recovery strategies

The webinar heard from policymakers on the front lines of addressing air pollution: Shirley Rodrigues, Deputy Mayor of London, with responsibility for environment and energy; and Claudia López, Mayor of Bogotá, Colombia.

New COVID-19 air quality/ transportation measures in London.

Cities need devolved powers if they are to address local air pollution, argued Rodrigues: “We can’t have a centralised approach … Citizens deal with their local authorities, mayors know what is needed in their cities. Devolving powers, alongside funding, is absolutely critical so we can push the electrification agenda and the reclamation of roads, so we can avoid a car-based recovery.”

As well as discussing ongoing efforts that London has been making to encourage cycling and walking, Rodrigues also described how the city has been working with EDF to develop “hyper-local” air monitoring, which can inform a better understanding of how pollution is disproportionately affecting low-income communities. “Unless you have the data to really understand where the hotspots of pollution and hotspots of inequality [overlap], you can’t target your resources and your efforts.”

López explained how Bogotá has responded to the pandemic by accelerating existing efforts to encourage low-carbon and cleaner forms of urban transport, such as adding an additional 80 km of cycle lanes to the existing 560 km network and making greater provision for pedestrians.

“This is not going to be temporary – we’re going to take advantage of the pandemic to speak more to this agenda for clean and green transportation,” she said.

She also noted the importance of working cooperatively with adjacent local authorities: “We won’t be able to achieve our goals if surrounding municipalities don’t share our vision and our goals, because air doesn’t recognize administrative boundaries.” Similarly, clean transit systems need to be built at the regional level if they are to be effective, she added.

Targeted policy interventions by World Bank & EU

Karin Kemper, Global Director, Environment, Natural Resources and Blue Economy Global Practice at the World Bank, catalogued some of the impacts from toxic air: 7 million deaths from air pollution each year; a cost to the global economy of around $5.7 trillion in 2016 alone; a disproportionate effect on the poor; and the exacerbation of susceptibility to COVID-19.

“Fortunately, the evidence shows that there are many actions and measures we can take to improve air quality,” said Rodolfo Lacy, Director for the Environment Directorate at the OECD. The pandemic, he said, “has demonstrated the potential for targeted mitigation efforts to generate rapid and significant improvements, and the accompanying economic benefits in terms of improved health are quite relevant.”

He added that the OECD has a number of policy recommendations in this area: existing air pollution regulations are enforced; any COVID-19 responses do not worsen air quality issues; road space is reallocated to pedestrians and cyclists; low-emission zones in cities should be expanded; and air quality monitoring networks should be extended and upgraded.

“One of the things about air pollution is that it really lends itself to policy interventions,” Kemper added. In addition to the OECD recommendations, she recommended policies that aim to reduce emissions of black carbon – which has the added benefit of helping to mitigate climate change – and the removal of subsidies on fossil fuels, which currently amount to $4.7 trillion each year, or 6.5% of global GDP.

“This may be the moment, when fossil fuels are naturally cheap, to repurpose subsidies and use them for other things, such as in the health sector or education,” she said.

“Finally, carbon pricing and pollution charges are really important,” she added, noting that the World Bank has been working with Mexico and Colombia to design carbon pricing systems.

Daniel Calleja Crespo, Director General for Environment for the European Commission spoke about the massive “Next Generation EU” Plan, to ensure the economic recovery from COVID-19 is sustainable, even, inclusive and fair for all member states. To repair and prepare for the next generation, the Commission will issue 30-year bonds totalling 750 billion euros ($842 billion USD), for investing in energy efficiency in buildings and infrastructure, renewable energy development and storage, carbon capture and sequestration, biodiversity and health. He said, “This plan is based on the ‘Green Oath,’ which abides by the principle, ‘do no harm.’ This plan will create resilience and a circular economy for future generations.”

The new plan goes farther than its previously announced European Green Deal. This growth strategy transforms the EU into a modern, resource-efficient, cleaner and competitive economy where there are no net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050, economic growth is decoupled from resource use, and no person and no place is left behind.

This was originally posted to the EDF Health blog.

Posted in Community Organizer, Concerned Citizen, Government Official/Policymaker, Health, Public Health/Environmental Official / Authors: svogel / Comments are closed

Digging deeper into London air pollution reduction with Waze

By Anne Marie Borrego / Published: June 23, 2020

Editor’s Note: Today’s post is by Meg Dupuy-Todd, a Manager at Environmental Defense Fund. Meg has led projects as a part of EDF’s Global Clean Air initiative, including collaborations with Google’s Project Air View in London and Salt Lake City.

Covid-19 has disrupted everyone’s lives, including providing an unfortunate and unwelcome experiment to examine London’s changing commuting and pollution patterns.

At Environmental Defense Fund, we have been collecting air quality data as part of Breathe London, a collaborative project to map and measure pollution in London. We could see that the social distancing measures had changed nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution levels, but we wanted to provide a fuller picture and determine what factors might be at play, including traffic.

Here’s how we used Waze for Cities data to dig deeper into the cause of observed NO2 pollution reductions.

NO2 pollution changes

The Breathe London consortium, with partners including Google Earth Outreach, has collected hyperlocal data to help Londoners better understand pollution in the city. Displayed in real-time on an interactive map, the Breathe London project measures and displays data from air quality sensors across the city.

After social distancing was strongly encouraged in the city in mid-March, the Breathe London monitors saw substantial NO2 pollution reductions — across the full network and especially in the city’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) in Central London. The greatest reductions occurred during daytime hours, between 6:00–22:00, when we also expected traffic to be the highest.

FIGURE 1: Breathe London network hourly mean NO2 measurements during 17 March to 13 April 2020 compared to pre-confinement levels.

Exploring Waze data

It was a given that restrictions to help reduce the spread of Covid-19 would change traffic patterns, as workplaces and businesses closed and many people began to work from home. As road transport is a major source of NO2 pollution, naturally, our assumption was there was a link with fewer vehicles on the road.

Through partnership with Waze for Cities program, we had access to Waze-generated anonymous incident and slow-down information in Greater London. Could the data help us understand where and how traffic had reduced?

From previous reviews of Waze data, we knew it would not provide us direct information on traffic volume — the number of vehicles on the road. Instead, we relied on the reported congestion information comparing speed on roads as compared to free-flow traffic. Using Google BigQuery, we were able to analyze the large volume of spatio-temporally resolved data to begin to get a picture of daily traffic congestion in London. Using two distinct geographical boundaries (Greater London and the ULEZ), we decided to calculate, for each hour of the day, the total length of roads where traffic was less than 60% of free flow speed as our proxy for traffic.

With our analysis, we saw that traffic congestion reduced to such an extent that it was approaching free-flow in the vast majority of Greater London roads after the stay-at-home order, even during what used to be peak commuting hours. This is most pronounced in the mostly commercial ULEZ.

FIGURE 2: Waze data — mean total length of congested roads by hour during 17 March to 13 April 2020 compared to pre-confinement levels. (Note difference in scales for Greater London and the ULEZ).

Putting it all together

With both datasets in hand, our team was able to look at the differences over time of NO2 pollution and traffic congestion. We knew that traffic varied by day of week, so we compared the data to a pre-confinement median by day of week and hour of the day.

We found an apparent association between the reduced pollution levels and lower traffic congestion in London. Examining the daily pattern of traffic congestion also suggests a tie between the biggest drops in pollution and the biggest drops in congestion — which both occur in the late afternoon from around 3 to 7 pm. You can see this depicted in the chart below. Note the difference in “variability in road congestion due to traffic during confinement” (shown in red) and the “weekly congestion average” (shown in green).

FIGURE 3: Breathe London network NO2 measurements during 13 March to 13 April 2020 in comparison to the typical hourly pre-confinement levels.

There is still a lot more to learn about the changes in road transport emissions and the relationship to measured pollution, but by incorporating the Waze data into our Covid-19 analysis we were able to shed new light on why NO2 pollution has recently gone down in London.

To learn more about our assessment please visit BreatheLondon.org/covid19.

This was originally posted on Medium.

Posted in London, Monitoring, Partners, Science, UK / Authors: aborrego / Comments are closed

How new data is helping West Oakland clear the air

By Fern Uennatornwaranggoon / Published: January 21, 2020

Fern Uennatornwaranggoon is EDF’s Air Quality Policy Manager.

Community groups are using California’s first-of-its-kind Community Air Protection Plan to reduce pollution in the city’s most impacted areas.

The fight for healthier air in West Oakland spans generations. Just Ask Ms. Margaret Gordon, who has been at it since 1992. “I’ve had 16 grandchildren and one great-grandchild since then,” says the co-director of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project (WOEIP). Two years ago her community’s efforts got a much-needed boost: California passed AB 617, establishing a program requiring the state to reduce air pollution in those areas most impacted. Under the Community Air Protection Plan, community groups, environmental organizations, industry and local air districts work with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to develop improvement plans.

Ms. Margaret, who has been an integral part of West Oakland’s efforts, tells EDF’s Fern Uennatornwaranggoon how the plan unfolded and how data gathered from Google Street View cars fed into its development.

Fern: Why did CARB turn to WOEIP to facilitate the community air plan?

Ms. Margaret: We were asked, because of the work we have done over the last 25 years on air quality. We had demonstrated our capacity to participate technically with the air district staff. In 2015 and 2016, we started doing the air monitoring with EDF, Google, the University of Texas and Aclima, and we also deployed 100 sensors with UC Berkeley throughout West Oakland for the 100×100 project.

Fern: WOEIP and the local Air District serve as co-leads for the plan. What was the process like for developing it?

Ms. Margaret: We had a partner agreement and a charter that outlined tasks, roles, materials development, who was going to meet with whom, and what technology we were going to use. And we had neutral facilitators to support the process—all those things were identified up front. We had a steering committee that met once a month for 17 months. Steering committee members had to residents or be part of an organization within the defined target area, so they could report back to their groups. We had people from neighborhood associations and business groups, the port and a truck working group.

Fern: So what were the steps you had to go through to get to the plan?

Ms. Margaret: We had to merge the modeling with the monitoring, and we had to communicate that to the West Oakland community. We worked with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District engineers and scientists to break down the information into small bites so people could clearly understand what we were talking about—it wasn’t dumbing it down, but we didn’t want to overwhelm people. The other part of the work was developing the strategies to reduce pollution. Some of the strategies came from the co-leads, but 75% came from the residents, based on the things they saw impacting emissions in West Oakland. The strategies were all based on 4 areas of concern: exposure, proximity, land use and enforcement.

Fern: How did the data from the Google study help in developing strategies to reduce pollution?

Ms. Margaret: It helped us establish priorities and gave us ground-up evidence we’d never had before The Google car data was the first time outside of us having our own backpacks that we were able to establish on-the-ground air monitoring. It showed us hot spots, more hyperlocal, more refined data than we’d seen before. It gave us another set of lenses to hone in and really focus on certain areas. And then to overlay that with the Kaiser Permanente health data—showing cardiovascular disease. That closed a lot of gaps and connected the dots.

Fern: How did the community use data to influence the truck plan on 7th street, which is designated as a truck route?

Ms. Margaret: Between Brush Street and the Frontage Road is where we have very low- to medium-income housing. This is one of the highest sensitive receptor areas.

Fern: There’s a higher density of children under 5 and a bunch of childcare centers.

Ms. Margaret: A school, a neighborhood clinic, the family resource center, stores, and a commercial area. It’s a multi-racial community living along that corridor, and we have a homeless population.

Fern: The city had proposed prohibiting trucks from near Frontage to not quite Market, but then from Market almost all the way to the 980, they’d just leave it as is. How do you think the data addressed that?

Ms. Margaret: Looking at the data and seeing pollution all the way on 7th street, the city is looking at the truck plan again and maybe banning truck traffic along the whole stretch. They have to study it first.

Fern: It’s also worth mentioning that you and your team has been using the air quality maps for educational and outreach purpose. And next month, the Oakland Museum of California will be featuring WOEIP’s work on air pollution and this kind of spatial data in a new exhibition.

Fern: Did you learn anything in this process that would be useful to other communities trying to reduce pollution?

Ms. Margaret: You have to have the commitment and the foresight and be willing to see the light at the end of the tunnel, to go through the hoops and the barriers and the challenges. And you have to be able to transcend your skills to other people within your community, while also transcending the understanding of agency staff and business. We have to figure out how we could coexist to make this better—this is all about collaboration and problem solving and having real, authentic equity in doing what needs to be done. And it’s not always about complaining but also having some resolution.

Learn more about our air quality mapping projects in Oakland.

This was originally posted on the EDF Health blog.

Posted in Health, Oakland, Public Health/Environmental Official / Authors: fuennatornwaranggoon / Comments are closed