Greener Business

Business Air Quality Fund

LEAP has invested £1m to establish the Mayor's Business Air Quality Fund. The fund provided grants of up to £200,000 to deliver Business Low Emission Neighbourhood to reduce pollution on high streets, around offices or within retail parks.

The successful projects were announced on 24 November 2017, and will be delivered by April 2019.

Five ‘Business Low Emissions Neighbourhoods’ across five boroughs were selected from a total of 15 proposals, showing the wide support for improving air quality within London’s business community. The BLENs will include measures such as anti-idling campaigns, zero emission delivery services and cleaner walking routes for staff and customers. They are being delivered by local business groups working in partnership with their local councils, who have supported the development of the proposals.

The BLENs will take place within the following boroughs and the proposals include:

Southwark

Better Bankside and Team London Bridge Business Improvement Districts are working in collaboration to deliver a project around Borough High Street, enhancing and promoting quieter routes as well as reducing emissions on the main roads. Interventions will include:

tranquil walking routes using the historic network of Inns and Yards that connect London Bridge Station with Guy’s Hospital and Borough High Street
a micro-consolidation scheme which involves having all deliveries sent into one location and distributing with a low or zero emission vehicle to reduce congestion and pollution
a green cycle path
anti-idling campaigns

Hammersmith and Fulham

Hammersmith Business Improvement District will deliver a project around the Hammersmith Flyover working closely with local organisations such as the Lyric Theatre, who have offered free space for events and workshops. The project will deliver a secure hub for people to store their bikes, and a host of greening and other improvements to the urban realm such as a green wall to help transform some of the grey car-dominated parts of this busy destination.

Islington

The Archway Town Centre Group will deliver a variety of interventions to support local businesses to go green and improve the area for walking and cycling, including:

a shared electric vehicle for deliveries
a green walking route
the removal of parking spaces outside the children’s centre to be replaced by new planting and trees
installing lockers for deliveries at the station, to help residents avoid missing deliveries and provide an alternative to getting their online shopping delivered to work, which often results in extra traffic pollution and congestion in central London, as well as a challenging commute home with large parcels

Camden

Euston Business Improvement District will provide an exciting and attractive cleaner walking route from Euston to Regents Park, helping people avoid some of the most polluted roads in London. Other plans include a new rapid electric charging point including greening and other street enhancements.

Westminster

Northbank Business Improvement District is a project around Aldwych and the Strand which will reduce pollution and make this incredibly busy area - home to a host of important destinations and attractions - much more inviting for walking and cycling. As part of the project, consultants will work with all the local businesses and organisations to help them cut unnecessary deliveries. Other interventions include a range of street improvements such as:

Parks and innovative lighting
a project with St Clement Danes School to improve walking routes to school
green zones which provide cleaner and more inviting walking and cycling routes
an eco-kiosk co-designed with the local community which will provide information about local attractions as well as air quality and other environmental information

Approximately £100,000 of remaining funding will support some elements of a Low Emission Neighbourhood around Homerton Hospital. This will provide walking and cycling routes and facilities for the 1.5m patients and 4,000 staff each year at the hospital. It will also provide electric vehicle charge points which will be used by the hospital and the public.

Through the Air Quality Fund, the Mayor has supported the Cleaner Air Better Business (CABB) project to develop an interactive map of London that allows you to put in any route and be shown a low pollution walking option. Using funding from the Mayor, CABB has created a tool which enables all of the project’s Business Improvement District partners to place this interactive map on their websites.

CABB undertook monitoring of some clean air routes which showed between 30-60 per cent lower air pollutant concentrations on the clean air walking routes compared to main street routes. You can find out more on their website.

LEAP is helping London’s Small to Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) save money on their energy bills and improve the capital’s air quality through Cleaner Heat Cashback. The scheme, which is the first of its kind in the UK, will provide between 30 to 40 per cent cashback to SMEs when they replace older, polluting boilers, with new, cleaner systems.

The £10million scheme will help make London’s workplaces more energy efficient while cutting fuel bills and improving air quality through the reduction of toxic emissions from older, polluting boilers. This is part of the Mayor of London’s ambition is to make London a zero-carbon city by 2050.

London’s air quality is a public health crisis. Every year, it is estimated that 9000 Londoners die prematurely from long-term exposure to pollution. In 2010, London’s filthy air was linked to 3000 hospital admissions and the economic cost of these health impacts is estimated as being up to £3.7 billion per year.

Cleaner Heat Cashback forms part of the Mayor’s wider £34m Energy for Londoners programme which aims to make London’s homes warm, healthy and affordable, its workplaces more energy efficient, and to supply the capital with more local clean energy. The scheme follows the Mayor’s successful Better Boilers scheme which replaced and repaired inefficient and broken boilers in nearly 500 fuel poor households, and Warmer Homes (launched in January) which targets fuel poor homeowners including those with disabilities or long-term sickness, and older people claiming eligible benefits, with up to £4,000 available per household.  So far around 550 households have applied for Warmer Homes.

Cleaner Heat Cashback is being delivered in partnership with the Energy Saving Trust, industry experts in energy efficiency and sustainability and Kiwa, a top 20 global leader in high-quality certification (who will support scheme analysis, inspection and technical assessment).

The scheme launch follows consultation and engagement with the business sector, manufacturers and installers of heating systems and trade associations, whose input has shaped the scheme and ensured it is fit for purpose and flexible enough to accommodate the wide range of businesses who can benefit.

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