Britain's street lampposts are already powered, already positioned at breathing height, and already maintained by local councils. They just need to be activated.
Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah was nine years old when she died in Lewisham in 2013.
In 2020, Ella became the first person in UK history to have air pollution officially recorded as a cause of death on her death certificate. Her case changed the national conversation — and made clear that this is not an abstract statistical problem. It is a human one.
Ella walked to school past busy roads every day. The air she breathed was legally within limits — and yet she sadly lost her life. It is a heartbreaking reminder that “legal” air is not always safe air.
The Clean Air Initiative is not about monitoring the problem. It is about actively removing it — from the streets where people live, walk, and breathe.
Britain's six million street lampposts are already standing, already powered, and already positioned at exactly the right height. The Clean Air Initiative activates what's already there.
A well-monitored arterial road that has improved a lot but still has a stubborn pollution hotspot — a strong place to prove the concept, with LAQN baseline data already in place.
No partnerships are in place yet — these are the organisations we plan to approach. Partnership enquiries welcome.
“For years I drove the A40 into London and watched the same haze sit over the city. One day, stuck on the Greenford flyover, I looked at the lampposts lining the road and wondered: why couldn’t every one of them clean the air around it?”
Whether you're a local authority, an investor, an engineer, or a concerned resident — there's a role for you in the Clean Air Initiative.