The new targets for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) serve to highlight how improving air quality continues to be a major priority for local government in the UK. But how can you minimise the environmental impact of your construction project and ensure compliance? Read on, as we explore all….
Even in 2025, air quality continues to be one of the biggest environmental risks to public health, with children and the elderly amongst those most affected. To assist local authorities with delivering cleaner air for communities and contribute to wider long-term air quality goals, the Air Quality Strategy was published in 2023. This document also includes the ambitious new targets for fine particulate matter (PM2.5), as set out within the Environment Act 2021 and forming part of our country’s 25 Year Environment Plan:
- Annual Mean Concentration Target ('concentration target') – a target of 10 micrograms per cubic metre (µg m-3) to be met across England by 2040
- Population Exposure Reduction Target ('exposure reduction target') – a 35% reduction in population exposure by 2040 (compared to a base year of 2018).
While the goal of achieving cleaner air is something for multiple industries and organisations to work towards, the construction and demolition sectors in particular have a chance to make a real difference.
Section 61 of the Control of Pollution Act 1974 is already in place to help mitigate the environmental impact of demolition and construction projects. However, the new PM2.5 targets take this one step further, with building and demolition contractors soon to be under increasing pressure to ensure their sites aren’t negatively impacting local communities or the environment through the generation of dust and VOCs.
At Mabey Hire, we’re working to help you get ahead of the game, offering more thorough testing and monitoring for sites around the country.
Our new and improved Enviroguard is a real-time, all-in-one monitoring solution that can be configured to monitor a variety of environmental factors specific to the needs of your site, including air quality, noise, dust and more. With improved air quality monitoring, it can now measure airborne PM10 PM2.5 or TSP particulate concentration levels. With sustainability more important than ever, it’s also good to know that Enviroguard is now more energy efficient, with each unit using less power for the same level of performance.
Modular and scalable, Enviroguard provides real-time data 24/7 that is seamlessly transmitted to our Insite portal, where it can be easily accessed, viewed and downloaded via PC, mobile or tablet. Offering additional reassurances, we can even tailor the trigger level alarms to suit your individual requirements.
Installed and configured by our experienced engineers, with the ability to also integrate Enviroguard with dust suppression units, our project management approach is there to ensure you get the full monitoring solution, from start to finish.
