ClairCity – Citizen-led air pollution reduction in cities

ClairCity was a four-year research project (2016-2020) that worked directly with citizens and local authorities in six European cities and regions. The Science Communication Unit at UWE Bristol led the Communications and Evaluation Work Package on behalf of the 16 partner organisations involved in the project.

The six cities and regions that partnered in the project were: Amsterdam in the Netherlands; Bristol in the UK; Ljubljana in Slovenia; Sosnowiec in Poland; the Aveiro Region in Portugal and the Liguria Region around Genoa in Italy. Each location faces different issues and causes of air pollution, but all of them are working towards a future with clean air.

As a result of the project team’s efforts, 818,736 citizens were involved in some form or another. Of these, 8,302 were directly engaged through workshops, events, school activities, mobile games and apps, and even videos, a number which far exceeded the expectations of the team.

Why was this significant? Because these 8,302 citizens all influenced clean air and climate change decisions in their local context.

ClairCity had a three-step process:

1. Conduct a baseline assessment of the policy landscape and citizens' mobility and home energy behaviours

2. Engage citizens and stakeholders through various creative methods (see our evaluation blog for more information) to gather their policy preferences and ratify them with policy makers

3. Model citizens' policy ideas against local ambition to 2050 and feedback findings to influence decision making

In nearly every context, citizens were more ambitious than ‘business as usual’, with the exception of Amsterdam where the local government was in fact more ambitious than its citizens.

ClairCity has produced dozens of resources to help citizens and young people become better informed, activists campaign more effectively and cities to draw from our findings or implement a similar change process in their context.

ClairCity was funded through the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme. For more information contact the Communication Coordinator Sophie Laggan, Communication and Evaluation Manager Laura Fogg-Rogers, or the Evaluator Margarida Sardo.