The reports on air pollution over the last couple of weeks have been appalling. Toxic particles in the air are now responsible for around 40,000 premature deaths a year. In London, the problem is particularly acute. Nearly 4 million workers and a quarter of all school children are regularly exposed to illegal levels of nitrous dioxide.
The issue is not getting any better either. Air pollution in London is now the worst that it has been in five years. Last year it took London eight days before it exceeded its annual air quality limits. This year it took just five.
As the founder of Farmdrop, I care about air pollution not just because I’m concerned about my family’s health but because the problem is definitely linked to the growing popularity of online shopping, including online grocery delivery.
It is no coincidence that the popularity of online shopping has coincided with the massive increase in the number of vans on our roads. Around 80,000 vans now enter central London every day and almost every one of these has a diesel engine. Diesel vehicles are a big contributor to air pollution, emitting 20 times more Nitrogen Dioxide (NOx) per kilometre compared to a petrol. The delivery vans used by our bigger supermarket rivals are doubly polluting as the cooling units used for refrigeration also emit diesel fumes.
The alarming statistics on air quality are a firm reminder of why I started Farmdrop. Our convenience cravings will only grow over time (mine included) but satisfying these in a way that doesn’t screw over the planet is completely doable. As the only online grocery company to have a 100% zero tailpipe emission electric delivery fleet we’re proving it. Every one of our vans takes 13.89 tonnes of CO2 and 10.36kg of nitrogen oxides off the road each year.
Given the impact of air pollution on our health, there is no question that other companies should be following our lead. Despite the current infrastructure constraints, electric vehicles can do a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of bringing down air pollution in our cities. Doing a simple back-of-the-envelope calculation, if every other food and drink company in London were to use electric vans, then in one year we could cut poisonous nitrogen oxides by 10%.
Our innovative supply chain is one of the reasons why we have been uniquely able to go electric — we are obsessed with finding local customers for local producers. In other words, fresher means greener.
The emissions caused by transport are far surpassed by the harmful emissions produced by our over-optimised and heavily industrialised food chain.
I am surprised that the recent coverage about air pollution has entirely overlooked the role of food production. It is impossible to solve our air pollution problem without solving our broken food system. The emissions caused by transport are far surpassed by the harmful emissions produced by our over-optimised and heavily industrialised food chain.
One of the biggest pollutants in our atmosphere is in fact ammonia, and ammonia is released into the air from the nitrogen fertilisers used by industrial farmers and animal waste. When this ammonia mixes with the pollutants in heavily populated areas, such as the nitrogen oxides produced by diesel vehicles in cities, it creates some of the very worst air pollution. And this air pollution creates a haze which drifts across cities and countries making it very difficult to manage.
In fact, the red alert warning for Londoners last month was caused by this type of haze pollution. Toxic air particles traveling from the industrial parts of Germany mixed with local emissions to create severely high levels of air pollution.
At Farmdrop we are using technology to give people access to the best farmers’ market quality food, with the convenience of online delivery, and in a way that looks after the planet. Our farmers keep artificial pollutants to an absolute minimum. And by streamlining and re-localising the supply chain, we are showing how it is possible to dramatically cut the amount of air pollution involved with food production.
We need to wise up. The problem with air pollution goes beyond transport. It is inextricably linked to food, and Farmdrop is on a mission to fix it.
