Westminster City Council is planning to run a project using sensors to collect data on the effect of commercial cooking on local air quality.
It is the latest step in the council’s smart city programme and reflects the high concentration of restaurants within its boundaries and concerns over their emissions of PM2.5 particulates.
David Wilkins, head of digital place at Westminster, told UKAuthority that it is currently assessing the suitability of individual restaurants to take part in the project, which will run for several weeks in each and be staggered over a year.
It recently signed a contract with data science company Health and Wellbeing 360 for the development of bespoke data visualisations and dashboards from sensors installed in kitchens areas. This will provide real time data on air quality to the council through its smart city platform and to chefs and restaurant managers.
This comes in response to concerns – which are still not regarded seriously in some restaurants – about the effects of air quality on the health of staff, and on the surrounding environment. Wilkins emphasised the importance of measuring levels of PM2.5 particulates as these can get deep into the lungs and contribute to health problems.
Evaluation of scalability
“We will have access to the data and be able to evaluate if it is scalable,” Wilkins said, adding:
“The thing we’re having to weigh up is that commercial cooking is very important to the Westminster economy. We have over 10,000 restaurants that support a really vibrant West End and city, so we’re looking at ways we can address the emissions without harming the sector.”
He added that one of the premises it is considering is a local catering college.
The project also involves equipping the kitchens with air purifiers and is part of Westminster’s effort to reduce local emissions to below World Health Organisation limits by 2040. Previously its smart city programme has not involved any policy levers or projects addressing the influence of commercial cooking on PM2.5 emissions.
The contract with Health and Wellbeing 360 resulted from a procurement process run with the Innovation Procurement Empowerment Centre that involved the council setting out a problem statement and the outcomes it wanted to achieve, then inviting proposals for innovative solutions.
