Create an air quality plan for your organization

That's how you do it

Do you want to tackle the challenges surrounding air quality in and around your organization in a systematic and sustainable way? Then you can draw up an air quality plan. An air quality plan is based on a vision and objectives. In the plan you formulate actions to which you link budgets and deadlines.
This step-by-step plan will help you make an air quality plan:

Step 1: Determine your goals
Step 2: Form a team
Step 3: Map out your current situation
Step 4: Provide support
Step 5: Select and realize your actions
Step 6: Evaluate and make your approach sustainable

Step 1: Determine your goals

Before you start, it is important to consider why you want to work on better air quality . As an organization you can have many different reasons for this, such as:

• You want to work on a healthy organization in which people feel good and are less likely to get sick,
• You want to build a sustainable organization that wants to reduce its own share in air pollution,
• You want to provide more knowledge and awareness about air quality in the organisation, neighborhood and society, in order to arrive at solutions for air pollution together,
• You want to strengthen research skills (e.g. at school) by measuring air quality,...

By thinking about the objectives in advance and writing them out (eg in a vision), you can shape your air quality policy in a more targeted way. And by involving your entire organization — or the representatives of different departments — from the start, you ensure broadly supported objectives (see step 4: Ensure support).

Step 2: Form a team

Together you can do more! Therefore, put together a motivated team or working group to draw up and implement your air quality policy. Think carefully about who you need in your team and look for allies. Make sure that the members of the team are given time and space to work on the project, for example by making sufficient time available in their tasks.

A first step is to map out the different stakeholders or stakeholders :

• Within the organisation: managers, employees or members of different departments, representatives of the various target groups of the organisation, persons responsible for sustainability, communication, safety or infrastructure… In a school this concerns e.g. management, teachers, students, building manager, prevention advisor , care teacher, environmental team…
• Environment of the organisation: local residents including neighborhood associations, local traders or family members (eg parents) of the members of the organisation.
• Also, don't forget the sources of air pollution in your neighborhood: a transport company or cattle shed, a large construction site, local residents who burn a lot with wood...
• Local government: aldermen/aldermen and services for the environment, mobility, public space, participation.
• Experts with regard to air quality, mobility, public space, participation, communication ... These can be external parties, but also members of your organization or network who are involved in this professionally or in their spare time.

Map out your organization's network : which people or organizations have useful experiences or interesting contacts? Who can you call on for sponsorship or financing of certain actions? And who is highly motivated to participate?

It is not necessary to include all these stakeholders in your team, but ensure sufficient diversity. It is best to involve stakeholders that you do not include in your team in your air quality policy in a different way (see step 4: Ensure support).

Step 3: Map out your current situation

By mapping the current situation, you get a better view of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges. These insights help you to pursue a more targeted air quality policy and to choose the best actions .
How do you map out your initial situation?

Get started immediately with our air quality scan. Schools can have their students make a scan themselves and carry out measurements of the indoor or outdoor air quality, traffic counts and inquiries or surveys in (the environment of) your organization. This makes the scan more reliable.

Step 4: Provide support

You cannot improve the air quality in and around your organization alone. After all, air quality is a complex story, with different stakeholders holding a piece of the puzzle. It is therefore important to involve the broad environment around your organization. This can be done in two ways:

• Communicate about what you do
• Involve others in your air quality policy.

Communicate about what you do

Good communication plays an important role in informing, enthusing and encouraging people to contribute.
Broad internal support is absolutely necessary. In the first place, therefore, ensure good internal communication with employees, members and managers. Use existing consultation structures (staff or members' meetings, management boards…) and channels (internal newsletter, Facebook group, information screens…).
Communicate also with external stakeholders: local residents, local authorities, sponsors, experts… Make sure they know what you are doing and invite them to participate in a positive way. Also use existing platforms for this, such as your website, social media channels or newsletter, existing consultation structures with the neighborhood or your local government…

Involve others in your air quality policy

Communication is important, but not enough. Make sure that the stakeholders also have a say . Make your air quality plan together with them. A first step is to identify who the people involved are.
You can involve internal and external stakeholders by giving them a place in your team (Step 2: Form a team). But there are many other possibilities. For example, you can organize workshops for (certain groups) of stakeholders to think about the objectives together (see step 1: Determine your objectives), to collect ideas about possible actions (see step 5: Select and realize your actions), or to together to map out who can make which contributions to better air quality. Via an (online) survey of your stakeholders you can get an idea of the concerns and wishes within and around your organization, or you can map the current situation (see step 3: Map your current situation).

Step 5: Select and realize your actions

You can take many actions to improve the air quality in or around your organization, or to reduce exposure to unhealthy air. Because air pollution has different sources and causes (traffic, wood burning, industry, agriculture...) one action will not be enough to solve the problem. A mix of measures is therefore necessary.
Proceed step by step:

• Choose your actions ,
• Make a long term plan,
• Realize your actions.

Choose your actions

On 'Together for clean air' you will find many air quality measures. These can help you choose a meaningful mix of actions, adapted to the specific situation of your organization.
You can compose your own mix of measures in various ways:

• Via the inspiration section you can search directly in the actions, or you can choose one or more challenges on which you want to work.
• Through our air quality scanyou get an idea of the most important challenges for your organization. This can help you to choose the best actions in a targeted manner.

Make a long term plan

Do you want to get started with a large number of actions? Then it is not feasible to implement all these measures simultaneously. Long-term planning is then necessary: at different times and with different priorities. You make a long-term plan together with your team .
In your long-term plan, you group the various measures into clusters. Measures in such a cluster reinforce each other, form a logical whole, require the same partnership... It is therefore best to plan measures within a cluster at the same time.
Some examples of possible clusters are:

• Ventilation and heating policy within your organisation,
• Getting started on healthy materials and products in your organization,
• Raising awareness, education and measuring air quality,
• Infrastructural measures to your building (to be planned for renovations),
• Approaching the outdoor space of your organization,
• Bicycle policy within your organization,
• Infrastructural interventions in the environment of your organization (you can, for example, plan these when your local government is redesigning your environment),
• Healthy routes to your organization,
• A traffic-safe environment for your organization.

In your long-term plan, it is best to designate a responsible person within your team who will monitor progress for each measure or group of measures.

Realize your actions

Choosing and planning your actions is just a first step. The real challenge, of course, lies in its realization. The inspiration pages of our toolkit help you with this by giving concrete tips and inspiration for each action.
It can also help to work out an action plan for each action or cluster of closely linked actions. In the action plan you answer these questions:

• What different steps do you need to take to make the action a reality?
• When do you take those different steps?
• Who do you need to perform the action?
• What do you need to realize the action?

Some steps will return with different actions:

• Gathering knowledge and inspiration: look for useful information and inspiring examples, and take a look at our inspiration page. That way you don't have to do double work.
• Looking for financing: many actions can be realized with limited resources. However, for some measures you will have to look for financing.
• Measuring: by taking a measurement at different times (e.g. before and after), you can better estimate the impact of the action. Measurements can also be useful when developing an action, for example to investigate how best to ventilate your building. (Read more about measuring air quality )
• Communicating: how and when do you communicate about the action to the various stakeholders? (see step 4: Provide support)

Step 6: Evaluate and make your approach sustainable

The implementation of your air quality plan and the realization of your actions will require regular adjustments due to advancing insights, questions from stakeholders or a changing context. So leave with an open and flexible attitude. In addition, it is important in the longer term to evaluate your approach regularly (e.g. every two years).

There are several ways to set up an evaluation. For example, with a new air quality scan you can evaluate whether progress has been made in certain aspects compared to the first scan. Another possibility is to compare the results of the various air quality actions and measures with the original objectives (see step 1: Determine your objectives): are the measures taken sufficient to achieve the objectives or is additional action required?
Evaluate with your team and your stakeholders. Do a survey among your employees or members, or organize an online poll through your communication channels. What went well, what less? What improvements are there? What should definitely be focused on in the future?

Update your long-term plan based on your evaluation and adjust your mix of measures (see step 5: Select and implement your actions).
Also look for ways to embed your air quality approach in your operations in a sustainable way. Make links with other themes that live within your organisation: health or prevention, sustainability, climate or ecology, participation, citizen science, solidarity or global citizenship… Give air quality a permanent place in your organisation's annual programme.

And finally: don't forget to thank your team and partners for their efforts and to highlight and celebrate the results of the actions.