the importance of awareness

Research carried out last year in the North East showed that there was widespread awareness of air quality’s importance, but a significant gap in terms of people’s willingness to alter their habits.

Researchers found that 80 per cent of residents believe clean air is everyone’s responsibility, yet 60 per cent would not consider cycling, and a further 48 per cent would not consider car-sharing. It is this gap that the Be Air Aware campaign is aiming to fill, with increased publicity and public engagement activity.

In a year’s time, we want to be able to show that people in Tyne and Wear understand what causes poor air quality, how they can improve it, and, most importantly, that they are willing to make small changes to their travel behaviour to help make the air cleaner for everybody.