City of London Green City Briefings – Air Quality in Cities: the realistic and real benefits of plants

AIPH, in collaboration with the Worshipful Company of Gardeners, presents the City of London Green City Briefings – a series of 8 webinars that present compelling evidence and examples of the power of ‘living green’ in delivering multiple solutions to city challenges.

Local improvements in air quality delivered by urban greening as climate change adaptation measures run alongside climate change mitigation strategies to reduce air pollution from emissions. This briefing focusses on providing clarity on what can be expected from living green within a multi-faceted approach to managing air pollution in cities.

Professor Paul Monks, BEIS Chief Scientific Adviser

Professor Paul Monks is Chief Scientific Adviser of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. His research experience covers the broad areas of air quality, atmospheric composition and climate change that has provided a platform for translation into diverse areas including forensic science, CBRN, microbiology and food safety, natural resource management and breathomics (breath analysis as a medical diagnostic).

As founding director of G-STEP (a university innovation initiative), he developed a business facing organisation with the aim of innovating using space based (EO) data to enhance the competitiveness of industry, particularly focused on SMEs.

Dr Tijana Blanusa, RHS Principal Horticultural Scientist

Dr Blanusa leads the Royal Horticultural Society’s Ecosystem Services Research Programme, identifying the structural and functional traits of plants that can be isolated, optimised and employed to benefit the wider environment.

Her post is based at the University of Reading (School of Agriculture, Policy and Development) where she teaches a Part 3 / MSc module on Green Infrastructure and Ecosystem Services and supervise undergraduates, masters and PhD students.

13:00 – Welcome

13:05 – Prof Paul Monks

Air quality, Net Zero and Trees

13:25 – Dr Tijana Blanusa

Plant traits associated with good delivery of ecosystem services: hedges case study

13:45 – Q&A

14:00 – Session close

Session 8: London Report on Climate Action – 7th December

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