Living roofs and walls news from Pritchard & Pritchard

“Air pollution is a major threat to public health. Each year in the UK, up to 11,000 deaths due to a heart attack or stroke are attributable to toxic air,” warns the British Heart Foundation.

Lack of action by the UK Government on air quality could lead to UK 160,000 deaths by 2030 the BHF’s research has shown.

BHF is lobbying the UK Government to adopt the WHO’s guideline levels for air pollution, especially on fine particulates (PM2.5), which are stricter and lower than the EU’s and UK’s. The BHF research claims that 15 million people in the UK live in areas where pollution exceeds the WHO levels.

The UK is currently debating a new Environment Bill, which claims to be “gold standard for improving air quality,” and will set out a new framework for tackling air pollution.

Prichard & Prichard strongly advocates including green infrastructure within that framework. Living walls, roofs and podium and rooftop gardens help improve air pollution (as well as heat, light and noise pollution) in cities.

Research (Pugh, MacKenzie, Whyatt and Hewitt, 2012) finds that “increasing deposition by the planting of vegetation in street canyons can reduce street-level concentrations in those canyons by as much as 40% for NO₂ and 60% for PM [particulate matter].”

A ‘street canyon’ describes the circulation of polluted air in the micro-atmosphere caused by the buildings on each side of a road. See the diagram from the research.

For more on the importance of green infrastructure in the fight to improve air quality in cities read this article by our friends at ANS in PBC Today.