Our impact

We accelerated the introduction of clean air policies in cities

In the UK, we drove the creation or expansion of eightClean Air Zones (CAZ) in Bath, Brighton, Portsmouth and the London Ultra Low Emission Zone – with the potential to save millions of lives. In the EU, we pushed the Polish Government to adopt legislation to enable Low Emission Zones (LEZs), with 12 mayors pledging to implement LEZs and Krakow becoming the first LEZ in central and eastern Europe. In Sofia, Bulgaria, the city announced plans to introduce a LEZ, following civil society’s demands for stronger clean air measures that were spearheaded by our partners. Through our partner C40, we galvanised 48 city mayors to sign the global clean air cities declaration, in which they committed to working towards the WHO air quality guidelines — a signal that city leaders are taking air pollution seriously.

We made the case for clean air worldwide

At the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, we joined Our Children’s Air to support mothers fighting for their children’s future. They met the UK’s COP26 President and demanded an end to government support for fossil fuels. We worked with Michael Pinsky to support his iconic Pollution Pods installation at COP25 and COP26. Over the course of COP26, we reached over 1 million people with our calls for joined-up action on air pollution and climate change.

We are placing the economic argument for clean air front and centre in the post-COVID recovery. Our work with Dalberg found that dirty air costs the Indian economy $95 billion per year. It’s a similar story in the UK: our work with CBI found that the UK would benefit from $1.6 billion every single year if it achieved clean air, and that excludes the savings to the NHS and social care. In the run up to COP27, our research on Africa’s fastest growing cities revealed that clean air could unlock $20billion for Lagos, Cairo, Johannesburg and Accra.

We strengthened the movement for clean air

We are the largest global philanthropic donor dedicated to cleaning our air, having raised $59m of direct funding to our pooled fund. On top of the funding we raised ourselves, we leveraged and influenced funding with partners to scale up pilot projects. Overall we’ve catalysed over $135 million to tackle air pollution across the globe. We’ve funded 176 different projects since our inception, from community-led organisations to big strategic partners. Two thirds of our grants go to grassroots organisations.

We rallied 16 multinational businesses to take action on air pollution through the Alliance for Clean Air. Trailblazing businesses like Google, IKEA, Mahindra and Siemens are measuring, and starting to reduce, their air pollution emissions.

We enabled data monitoring and targeted clean air measures

We’ve invested in air quality sensor networks to help fill data gaps and support targeted action in some of the most pollution-affected communities. With our support, the OpenAQ platform has facilitated open access to air quality data from more than 43,000 reference, research and low-cost monitors. That’s double the number of countries with air quality data available to the public than before.