The Biodiversity Foundation has launched the “Health and Air Quality” Programme, which aims to improve air quality, raise awareness and raise awareness among citizens about the impacts that pollution has on health and the environment, and involve citizens to make them see that their lifestyle habits influence this factor.

Within the framework of its own project, the Biodiversity Foundation has selected 24 innovative solutions whose purpose is to reduce the impact on air quality. Of these 24 initiatives, a Committee of Experts has selected the three with the greatest potential to be implemented in Spain, the implementation of which will be studied from now on.

The selected initiatives are aimed at the three main lines of work of this programme (training, raising awareness and sensitizing schoolchildren on air quality; generating public awareness through incentives; and supporting business initiatives). For this reason, they have been selected as innovative solutions that best reflect the philosophy of the Air Plan:

Air Now School Flag Program, USA A campaign based on the use of colored flags using the EPA Air Quality Index (AQI) to help children, parents, school staff and the community at large be aware of daily air quality conditions.

Som Energia, Spain.- A non-profit cooperative for the consumption and production of green energy that offers the possibility of using green and sustainable energy.

B2 Breathe Better, USA Campaign  to reduce environmental pollution in school zones, trying to reduce the levels of ozone at ground level and that of suspended particles. The proposal involves students, teachers, administration, school staff, local government and other community entities in the area.

The Committee of Experts, which met today at the headquarters of the Biodiversity Foundation, is made up of Alberto Orío, head of the Air Quality area of the Ministry of the Interior, María Seguí, General Director of Traffic of the Ministry of the Interior, Ángeles Cristóbal, of the Environment Government area of the Madrid City Council, Víctor Viñuales, executive director of the Ecology and Development Foundation, Luis Hernández, director of the Fiatema Foundation and the Air Quality Observatory, Albert Soria, deputy director of the La Caixa Foundation and Luis Berruete, director of CREAS.

The director of the Biodiversity Foundation, Sonia Castañeda, stressed “the importance of the main beneficiaries of the execution of this project being the citizens because what is intended is precisely to promote their awareness and involvement in air quality. But the agents of the sector will also benefit since they will be able to use in their field of work the proposal of solutions for the challenges of the Air Plan that the Biodiversity Foundation has identified”.