Clean Air for Blue Skies – when will we achieve it?

Today, the 7th of  September 2024, is the UN International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies, part of the UN Environment Programme.

Marked annually since 2019, this year’s observance emphasises ‘the urgent need for stronger partnerships, increased investment, and shared responsibility’ to combat air pollution.

Staggeringly, air pollution is the second leading risk factor for death, causing around 8.1 million premature deaths every year. These may come in the forms of stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, and/or acute respiratory infections.

The official campaign page tells us that 99% of us breathe in air pollution and the World Health Organization goes further, sharing that ‘99% breathe air that exceeds WHO guideline limits and contains high levels of pollutants, with low- and middle-income countries suffering from the highest exposures.’

Those of us who live near busy roads or in flight paths may not be surprised but perhaps those of us in more rural areas are? The thing about air pollution is that it doesn’t stop at a human made boundary or marker. It knows no borders. It’s in the air around us, swirling, in every breath most of us take. Perhaps we’ve forgotten what clean air looks, feels and tastes like.

We’ve been supporting community energy for years. For us, this means projects that seek to put control of clean and renewable energy production, and any benefits generated by that production, into local hands.

We recently heard from the Bristol Energy Co-operative, at the Stir To Action Festival. They spoke about their turbine – currently the highest in England – and their broader work developing renewable energy and efficiency projects with and for their community. The numbers tell a brilliant story – 1600 members, £15million raised to invest in clean power projects, 13.4MW installed energy generation capacity and a huge £400,000 in community benefit payments has been distributed to a wide range of local organisations.

Through Community Shares ICOF (CSI) we’ve recently supported Grimsby Community Energy a co-op and Community Benefit Society. They have raised £444,732 of investment to deliver renewable energy across Grimsby, Cleethorpes and North East Lincolnshire, installed 534kW of solar PV (photovoltaic) panels for community organisations and generated 157MWh of clean electricity, saving 184t of CO2,in the last eight years.

Through the Energy Resilience Fund, we are helping co-operatives, community businesses and social enterprises to reduce their heat, light and power needs. We do this by supporting them to retrofit energy generating/saving technology on buildings that they own or manage.

Can we help your co-op or community owned venture to make the skies cleaner tomorrow than today? Find out more about the kinds of projects we help here and get in touch if you’d like to discuss how we might support your work .

#WORLDCLEANAIRDAY / #CLEANAIRNOW