Air pollution control during tournament-time
Initiative description: Maintaining adequate indoor air quality in FIFA World Cup 2022™ sites by specifying materials with low Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) levels, controlling indoor pollutants and sources of airborne contamination while providing adequate mechanical ventilation. Maintaining adequate outdoor air quality by monitoring air quality, eliminating or reducing sources of pollution at their source, and/or applying appropriate mitigation measures to minimise exposure to air pollution at the sites.
Maintaining good indoor and outdoor air quality is paramount to ensuring health, safety and comfort during the tournament for everyone including spectators, the competing teams, workers and volunteers.
Indoor air quality is a requirement of the Global Sustainability Assessment System (GSAS) Operations Certifications System. Good indoor air quality at FIFA World Cup 2022™ sites is maintained by using materials with low volatile organic compounds (VOC) levels, avoiding indoor pollutants and sources of airborne contamination, and providing mechanical ventilation. To date, detailed onsite measurements have been conducted at Al Janoub and Khalifa International Stadiums and plans are underway to do the same at remaining FIFA World Cup 2022™ stadiums.
Outdoor air quality can be improved by identifying, eliminating and reducing sources of pollution, and applying appropriate mitigation measures to minimise exposure to air pollution at the sites. Hence monitoring and measuring air quality is an important step that will also support longer term objectives to assess and improve the county’s air quality.
To progress this initiative, we collaborated with the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MOECC) to set up long-term monitoring of air quality at FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ stadiums. Permanent air quality monitoring stations have been installed in Al Janoub stadium precinct and at Qatar University training sites. A plan is in place to install similar stations at other stadium sites to gather data before, during, and after the tournament. This data will feed into the national network for monitoring air quality, which consists of 20 air quality monitoring stations at present. This will contribute to assessing the impact of air quality on the country’s environment and health systems, while also helping form a repository of knowledge about local air quality and ways to improve it.