News Release
City shines a light on air quality for Clean Air Day
Today, the City of Edmonton celebrates Clean Air Day by sharing an innovative approach to measuring air quality. This afternoon, an artistic lamp in City Hall was relit with a smart LED lightbulb, which uses new computer code written by City employees. The smart colour-changing bulb will provide a visual indicator for the Air Quality Health Index (AQHI) for any location in Alberta.
“We’re pleased to resurrect this wonderful piece of art here in City Hall to provide a visual indicator of local air quality,” said Daryl Croft, Branch Manager, Open City and Technology. “The previous code used was not available to us any more due to its cost, so our great team of employees came together and wrote new code. Now, we can share our code and what we’ve learned with everyone across the city and the province, if others want to set up their own indicators.”
The new code is the result of an employee innovation event in the City’s Open City and Technology Branch earlier this year, which sought free or low-cost technological solutions to corporate challenges. This code saves the City $3,000 per year in subscription costs, and is now available to the public for free. The code imports air quality data, and when combined with an app for a smart LED colour-changing bulb, will provide an easy-to-follow indicator for local air quality. The colours change from blue, for good air quality, through the spectrum to dark red for poor air quality.
“The AQHI Lamp is a small indicator of our larger climate change efforts,” said Chandra Tomaras, Director of Environment and Climate Resilience for Urban Planning and Economy. “We hope that on more days than not, the light will glow blue, indicating the work we’ve put into keeping our air clean and breathable—and our environment healthy.”
The City has set an aggressive target in the Community Energy Transition Strategy to be carbon neutral in its corporate operations by 2040 and for the entire community to produce net zero GHG emissions by 2050. Events like Clean Air Day help to remind us that we all play a role in helping to minimize climate change and reduce our carbon footprint and impact on the Earth.
The lamp, originally made by local artist Dylan Toymaker in 2018, will reside in City Hall on a semi-permanent basis.
Residents who would like to build their own AQHI Lamp are encouraged to visit “Take Action” at edmonton.ca/airquality.
For more information:
edmonton.ca/cleanairday
AQHI Light Bulb Setup Guide
Pinoy Edmonton News 