INDUSTRY NEWS
‘BITTERSWEET’ HONOUR FOR AIR QUALITY CHAMPION
A
ir quality and child health campaigner Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah has been made a CBE for services to public health in
the King’s New Year Honours. She described the award as “bittersweet” because
her campaigning was prompted by the death of her nine-year-old daughter Ella, who is the fi rst person in the UK to have air pollution stated on her death certifi cate.
“It is an absolute honour and recognition for the
campaign [but] children are still dying, and my ambition is to keep on campaigning so that no other parent has to experience what I went through,” she said. MPs are currently debating her proposed Clean Air (Human Rights) Bill – also known as ‘Ella’s Law – which has already received approval from the House of Lords and the London Assembly. The new law would introduce specifi c
responsibilities for building operators to meet indoor air quality (IAQ) targets in line with World Health Organisation (WHO) guidance and Kissi-Debrah has become a prominent voice in the push to improve
standards of ventilation in buildings through her work with the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA). “The NHS will not be able to reduce its waiting lists until we clean up our air,” she told a BESA webinar marking the fi rst ever World Ventilation Day on November 8 last year. “It is also much easier to control the indoor air than the outdoor – so tackling IAQ is a great way to give people back power over their own environment and save lives.” The WHO has established that 3.8 million
premature deaths worldwide are linked to poor indoor air every year out of a total of 8.7 million from general air pollution. “We have to be clear about this…bad IAQ leads directly to deaths,” said Kissi- Debrah. BESA said it was delighted to hear of her “richly
deserved honour”. “Ros is an amazing campaigner and a force of
nature,” said Nathan Wood, chair of the Association’s Health & Well-being in Buildings group of which she is Honorary President. “She completely
Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah pictured with BESA’s David Frise and Nathan Wood
understands the importance of improving ventilation to help protect children and the most vulnerable, in particular, from airborne pollutants and to reduce the risk of disease transmission. “Everyone at BESA and anyone in our industry who has had the privilege of attending a meeting with Ros or hearing her speak will be delighted that she has received this recognition. It should inspire us all to redouble our eff orts and work even more closely with her to clean up our air – both indoor and out.”
CAMPAIGN TARGETS HIGH STREET HEAT LOSS T
he Campaign to Stop High Street Heat Loss is urging the government to take urgent measures and pass legislation that insists
on shop front doors being kept shut, to prevent further environmental impact. In 2018 a Daily Mail investigation found that eight out of 10 fl agship stores on Oxford Street in London either wedged their doors open or had completely open shop fronts. David Bennett, chairman of The Campaign to Stop High Street Heat Loss said: “Sadly, despite numerous campaigns and appeals to the Government over the past few years, nothing has been done to mandate a change, and little has changed in the way of how shops operate. “There are those who have chosen to buck the
trend, Boots, Marks & Spencer and Waterstones, plus others, have made the decision to keep their doors closed. But if you walk down any high street today, you will see that most shops – from big chains to small independent retailers still keep their doors wide open. “The reasons shops won’t generally shut their
doors are simple – one, because they are afraid their customers will go elsewhere, thinking the shop isn’t open. And two, they dare not make the fi rst move for fear they will lose business to their competitors who keep their doors open.”
year. With the current energy crisis meaning that energy prices are now around 3.5 times higher than they were in 2010, the overall fi gure is likely to be close to £3.5billion for 2023. Put very simply – shops can save up to 54% of their overall energy expenditure just by keeping their doors closed. But most are not willing to make that change.
Cambridge University
research in 2010 revealed that shops that kept their doors open consumed twice as much electricity as those that did not. Put another way, shops that
shut their doors could save up to
10 tonnes of CO2 – the equivalent of three return fl ights from London to Hong Kong – and cut their energy bills in half. And if all retailers followed suit, the country’s overall energy usage could drop by 2.5 per cent.
When the Cambridge University study took place,
the practice of keeping doors open no matter the weather was thought to cost retailers £1billion a
The team behind the campaign argues that without legislation this problem is not going to be solved; instead of waiting for people to make the fi rst move — they state that the Government must make regulations that stipulate that all shops must keep their doors closed by law – because if all shops have to keep their doors closed by law, then no one retailer should think they are at a
disadvantage, and everyone benefi ts. For this reason, The Campaign to Stop High
Street Heat Loss has launched a new government petition, designed to push the current government to take urgent measures and pass legislation that insists on doors being kept shut.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/628520
6 February 2023
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