EMSOL teams up with Croydon Council to tackle pollution

Once upon a time London was nicknamed The Big Smoke, thanks in no small part to The Great Smog of 1952, and to be honest, the nickname wouldn’t seem too out of place today either! The capital certainly has a problem with pollution, and despite some encouraging efforts in the last few years such as the Ultra Low Emissions Zone, it is a problem that has been allowed to go unchecked for far too long. One of the key reasons we founded EMSOL was to help businesses and organisations tackle pollution. We recognised that many people wanted to take action, but they weren’t sure how.

EMSOL is dedicated to building a better world, and a big part of this involves raising awareness about air pollution and harmful emissions, as well as how businesses and construction firms can cut down on these to provide healthier air quality. Since launching in 2017, we’ve been reducing transport pollution and construction site emissions. Customers use our innovative system to help them understand the action they need to take to enhance and improve the environment.

Our work with Croydon

We are looking to work with like-minded institutions and organisations who are serious about tackling the issue of harmful emissions across London, and the impact they can have on the local community. This is why we were delighted to team up with Croydon Council in a bid to take action against harmful pollutants affecting people and businesses across the city.

Croydon has long been a borough we’ve wanted to work with because we know it’s a tech hub that always strives to support innovation. Croydon Council is concerned with managing environmental impact, and has sought to establish the city centre as an Air Quality Management area. The drive to transform Croydon into the most sustainable borough in London is a journey we are keen to be part of.

Innovation and collaboration

Croydon approached EMSOL to help manage environmental impacts and try to reduce site pollution throughout the borough. This has involved coming up with ways that construction firms can reduce pollution without negatively impacting how they work. 

The team at Croydon Council responsible for managing pollution faced a problem. They needed to meet targets on sustainability and reduce pollution, but Croydon is a borough going through an exciting period of redevelopment and investment. Juggling multi million-pound redevelopment projects whilst also trying to achieve the accolade of ‘London’s most sustainable borough’ is hard work. Of course, one cannot achieve significant redevelopment without facing the issue of pollution, and this was a concern for residents and commuters alike. This is one of the reasons why Croydon Council recognised the benefits of a partnership with EMSOL and our targeted approach to improving pollution. 

How we helped

We recognised the issues faced by Croydon Council and proposed that we take charge of developing and improving their existing site emissions management system. Our focus here was on creating a powerful and intuitive dashboard for Croydon Council. The EMSOL Platform provides insights through informative reports, dashboards, and real-time site maps, to make the process of reducing site emissions much more straightforward. A key component of our system is that the emissions data we provide is correlated with vehicle data in order to cast a light on the vehicles that might be causing excessive emissions. This data provides key insights for those on-site, as well as the council, to take action to reduce the impacts of these vehicles. 

Our work with Croydon so far

We have been working extensively with Croydon Council at selected sites across the borough. The principal area has been the Queen’s Square site, where we took a survey to find out the data relating to two key pollutants – NO2 and PM10. This was key to empowering Croydon to take the necessary steps to improve air quality. Additionally, we are also continuing to work with them at Wandle Road car park development, an initiative designed to produce more than 120 new homes in Croydon. Having previously worked with us at Queen’s Square, Croydon Council knew the benefits of our innovative system, and how integral it would be in helping them work towards improving air quality throughout the borough. 

Our findings

We have found that our system and dashboard is essential for many people across the construction and transport industries, and that typically we have three different types of users:

• Super Users
• Environmental Managers
• Construction Managers. 

These are the people who seemed to benefit the most from the approach we took. They took notice of the data we provided, and were really able to use it in a positive way in order to help work on making their approach more environmentally sound, as well as reducing pollution as much as possible. 

Next steps

Working closely with Croydon Council, we have big plans for the future, and the key focal point here is to ensure that high standards are being maintained across Croydon. We are also looking to empower small teams to do more with the limited resources they might have – this is something we are very passionate about. 

EMSOL continues to be at the forefront of the war on pollution, and our innovative measures and approaches to projects makes us an invaluable partner for many boroughs and councils across London, and beyond. If you are hoping to reduce pollution and harmful emissions in your area, get in touch with us and we can work together towards this common goal.