EMISSIONS & AIR QUALITY Smart Class 2019

“Climate Change and Emissions Data Driven Solutions” – Introduction to climate change impacts in the UK in key areas with special attention to emissions and air quality related impacts. Trained by former US Vice President and Nobel Prize laureate Al Gore, Climate Reality Project Leader Ines will also outline in her opening keynote what solutions are being implemented that utilise data and digital innovation to deliver actions to address global warming.

“The Air that We Breathe: Enabling Hyper-Local Air Quality Monitoring with Emerging Technologies” – Government and local authorities globally are coming under increasing legislative pressure to better monitor air quality, and to deploy and actively manage ‘clean air zones’ across our cities. By 2050 a huge populations shift will have resulted in 70% of the world’s populations living in urban areas. This seismic shift is driving Smart City initiatives globally. 44% of UK councils currently do not have fit-for-purpose air and pollution monitoring capabilities (The Independent, 2017). With a more stringent government Air Quality Plan about to come into force, councils face significant fines if they are not compliant. Welsh tech company Vortex IoT will deliver a thought-provoking view of the importance of the ‘Air that We Breathe’, and explain how emerging technologies and innovation will contribute to our ever-changing societal needs and how developing a new Hyper-Local Air Quality Monitoring (AQM) solution can provide revenue-generating opportunities for local authorities and play a key role in the creation of new urban business models that are essential as the shape of our towns and cities changes over time.

“How to Effectively Manage and Enforce Clean Air and Low Emission Zones with Virtual Permits and Digital ANPR” – A recent UN pollution report found that air in 44 UK cities and towns is too dangerous to breathe and estimated over 40,000 premature deaths per year from road polluted air. Imperial and Videalert demonstrate that the move towards managing air quality needn’t be a giant leap into the unknown and can be achieved by simply utilising proven technologies in a way that will make a very real difference to the quality of life in our cities and towns.

“Making the Air Healthier to Breathe: Clean Air for the People” – The problem of air pollution is not going away anytime soon. Despite measures to address the pollution at source, the impact on the everyday person may take a number of decades to materialise. Therefore understanding how we can create clean air for people now is critical to their everyday life. We may even find that traditional safe havens may not be as safe as we first thought. Airlabs have explored a number of environments making the air healthier to breathe.

“Being Indoors is a Haven from all that Pollution – Right?” – Well that’s what people like to think, “We’ve been breathing this air for the last 10 years and been OK so what’s all the fuss about?”. However, new studies have shown that indoors, the air can be far more polluted and what’s more is 200-500 times more likely to carry carcinogens than outdoor air. AirProfiling put the case that Monitoring indoor air is the first and essential step to managing and controlling air quality.

“Logistics and Air Quality – How do we drive further improvement?” – The advent of the Euro VI truck will see logistics’ local emissions fall by 80-90%. But how can we get further improvements in performance in the 2020s, given that the UK requires 2.5 million tonnes of goods delivered into its urban areas every day of the year? In this keynote presentation, the FTA’s Head of UK Policy will examine the role of future fuels and power sources, alternative methods of delivery, data sharing and consolidation.

“Healthier and Greener City: Westminster” – Air Quality is top of the agenda for Westminster City Council and the Council views tackling air quality with a sense of urgency. Westminster suffers from the worst air pollution in the country and, with 9.9 million drivers in the capital and 370,000,000 miles driven in Westminster each year, road transport contributes to more than half of the most deadly emissions. In this closing keynote, Westminster’s Cabinet Member for Environment and City Management explains how their approach is to focus on reducing the sources of pollution while helping residents and visitors to take action in reducing their exposure to dirty air. Tim will outline a variety of initiatives to improve air quality that utilise different methods in pollution reduction, including Electric Vehicles, #Don’tBeIdle and the School Clean Air Fund. He’ll also discuss Westminster’s technologically and data driven policies and interventions including their involvement in the monitoring project ‘Breathe London’, trialling of innovative technologies ranging from green infrastructure to retrofitting the council’s waste vehicle fleet, use of data driven evaluation of parking projects and work on eliminating unnecessary vehicle idling.