Clean Air – A Right, not a Privilege
This Love Your Lungs Week, Lets Talk About Air Quality
This week is Love Your Lungs Week 2025 — an annual campaign dedicated to raising awareness about lung health and supporting those with respiratory conditions, including severe asthma. It’s a time to reflect, take action, and share knowledge that can help protect and strengthen our lungs.
Whether it’s through lifestyle choices, creating healthier home environments, or simply having conversations with family, friends or colleagues, we all have a part to play in supporting better breathing.
If you’re living with asthma, you’ll already understand the importance of proactive management and access to the right treatment. But beyond medication, there’s a critical factor that often gets overlooked: the quality of the air we breathe every day.
Why Air Quality Matters to Me – and Should Matter to You
As you sit here reading this, your brain is signalling your diaphragm to contract and your ribs to expand. Air passes through your trachea, filling your lungs — sustaining your life. It’s an automatic, vital act. And yet, this same air can carry pollutants that silently impact our health.
Have you ever stopped to consider the quality of the air you’re breathing? For people living with asthma or other respiratory conditions, it’s often front of mind, a daily worry, not an abstract concept. But even for those without a diagnosed condition, air quality matters. In fact, poor air quality is linked to an estimated 7 million premature deaths worldwide each year.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly every one of us is breathing air that exceeds safe pollutant levels. The risks are serious, from asthma and respiratory illness to cardiovascular disease, stroke, and certain cancers. In 2020, the UK saw a landmark moment when air pollution was listed as a cause of death on a child’s death certificate — a tragic but vital recognition of its very real dangers.
A Personal and Professional Mission
This issue isn’t just professional for me — it’s personal.
As the founder of Haze Environmental Ltd, I’ve spent nearly two decades working in air quality. Every project I take on is driven by a core belief: that everyone deserves access to clean, safe air. Our health depends on it, especially the most vulnerable in our communities.
Air pollution is often invisible. You might walk along a busy road or live near a development site without ever seeing the particulates you’re inhaling, but your body feels their impact. That’s where consultants like me come in: helping to predict, measure, and mitigate the effects of air pollution from developments such as new roads, housing, or industrial sites. We assess how these changes could affect nearby homes, schools, and care facilities, places where clean air is essential.
For me, this work isn’t just technical. It’s about public health, environmental justice, and long-term sustainability. It’s about using my expertise to help clients make informed decisions and to help protect the people who might otherwise be overlooked.
How Clean Air Protects Our Lungs: The Hidden Link Between Air Quality and Asthma
Clean air isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s essential for healthy lungs. Every time we breathe, our lungs act as a gateway between the outside environment and our internal systems. When the air is clean, our respiratory system can do its job efficiently: delivering oxygen, supporting immune function, and maintaining the delicate balance our bodies need to stay well.
But when the air contains harmful pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), fine particulate matter (PM2.5), ozone, or volatile organic compounds (VOCs), this balance is disrupted. Pollutants can irritate and inflame the airways, reduce lung function, and trigger conditions like asthma, bronchitis, or long-term lung disease. For children, whose lungs are still developing, the risks are even greater.
Breathing clean air:
- Reduces inflammation in the lungs, helping to prevent or reduce the severity of asthma attacks.
- Improves overall lung function, particularly in children and older adults.
- Lowers the risk of chronic conditions such as COPD and cardiovascular disease.
- Supports recovery for those with existing respiratory illnesses.
Even short-term exposure to polluted air can lead to coughing, wheezing, breathlessness, and increased medication use for people with asthma. Long-term exposure raises the risk of hospital admissions and reduces life expectancy.
A New Role for Healthcare
To address this, the healthcare sector has an increasingly important role to play. Doctors and other professionals are uniquely placed to educate patients about the health risks of air pollution and advise on how to reduce exposure. But to do this effectively, they need support and training.
Encouragingly, we’re starting to see change. Great Ormond Street Hospital, for example, has launched a pilot scheme that includes local air pollution data in patient records. By mapping nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter concentrations at a patient’s home address, doctors can now see whether their patients are living in areas that exceed WHO safe limits.
This is a powerful step towards more personalised, preventative care and it highlights just how connected air quality is to public health.
Who’s Most at Risk?
Air pollution doesn’t affect everyone equally. Children, older adults, pregnant people, and those with existing health conditions are particularly at risk.
But make no mistake, no one is immune. Even healthy adults can experience long-term effects from repeated exposure to poor air quality. Recognising who’s most vulnerable can help us prioritise action and advocate for the people who need protection most.
5 Ways to Improve Air Quality for People with Asthma
Asthma can be triggered or worsened by exposure to pollutants, both indoors and outdoors. Here are five practical ways to help improve air quality and reduce asthma symptoms and improve the air we breathe:
Reduce indoor pollutants
Keep homes clean and well-ventilated. Use low-VOC products, vacuum with a HEPA filter, and control humidity to prevent mould and dust mite build-up.
Improve ventilation
Good airflow helps dilute indoor pollutants. Open windows when outdoor air is clean, use extractor fans, and consider air purifiers or mechanical ventilation systems.Monitor outdoor air quality
Check local air pollution forecasts and avoid strenuous outdoor activity near busy roads on high pollution days.Choose cleaner travel options
Reduce exposure to traffic emissions by walking or cycling away from main roads, supporting low-emission zones, and using public transport where possible.Raise awareness
Air quality is a public health issue. Talk about it at home, work, or school and support initiatives that aim to reduce air pollution in your community.Breathe Easy? Not Without Clean Air
At Haze Environmental, we believe that clean air is a fundamental right, not a privilege. Breathing shouldn’t come with a health warning, yet for too many people, especially those with asthma or other respiratory conditions, it does.
That’s why we’re passionate about shaping a more sustainable, breathable world, one where health, environment, and planning decisions go hand-in-hand. We proudly collaborate with clients and partners who share our vision, working together to create a healthier future for communities across the UK.
But if we’re serious about protecting public health, we need more than just good intentions. We need action.
To make meaningful progress, we must:
- Move beyond box-ticking compliance with air quality objectives.
- Expand monitoring so we understand what’s really happening where people live, work, and breathe.
- Standardise and strengthen assessments, making them more consistent and transparent.
- Regularly review policies in light of the latest scientific and public health evidence.
How Haze Environmental Helps
At Haze Environmental, we work with local authorities, architects, and developers to assess and mitigate air quality impacts from residential schemes, schools, and infrastructure. Whether it’s modelling future air quality, monitoring construction dust, or advising on design layouts, we help clients protect both planning outcomes and public health.
But our commitment doesn’t stop at paid projects.
Recently, we’ve been proud to support a local school with pro bono air quality monitoring, helping staff and students better understand the air they breathe and how it varies throughout the day. We also took part in Environment Week, running interactive sessions to raise awareness about air pollution, what causes it, and how we can all be part of the solution.
These moments — engaging young minds, sharing knowledge, and giving back to the community — are just as important as the technical work. Because clean air isn’t just a planning metric; it’s about people. And we believe everyone, especially children, deserves to grow up breathing safe, healthy air.
We all have a role to play, from policymakers to planners, healthcare professionals to individuals. Let’s not wait until poor air quality causes more preventable harm. Let’s act now, together.
👉 Join us on our journey toward a cleaner, greener tomorrow:
Haze Environmental is an independent air quality and odour consultancy on a mission to make a positive impact on the clients we work with — and on the environment we all share.
