Public Engagement and Communication - Stage 5

01 Build public participation into the rules of decision-making

The defining characteristic of Stage 5 is that participation becomes part of the formal decision-making process. This means institutionalizing standing mechanisms through which communities and civil society can access and challenge data, influence regulatory decisions, and lead action.  All or part of decision-making authority may be granted to a representative group of stakeholders involved in long-term projects such as citizen participatory panels, advisory boards, committees, and multi-sectoral alliances. Although these co-designed processes tend to be slower and more politically complex than consultation, they produce plans with broader ownership and stronger implementation support (see good practice recommendations in IISD, 2016 and UNECE, 2020; and an example of national guidelines from Jamaica, NEPA, 2020).

These initiatives are guided by regional, national, or international governmental directives that outline principles for public consultation on environmental issues. The Aarhus Convention, a legally binding treaty under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, requires EU and some Central Asian governments to provide environmental information on request and disseminate it proactively; to guarantee public participation in environmental decision-making for permits, plans and policies; and to provide legal recourse when these rights are denied. Its counterpart for Latin America and the Caribbean, the Escazú Agreement, establishes the same procedural rights — access to information, participation and justice in environmental matters — in that region, while UNEP’s Bali Guidelines provide voluntary global guidance for governments, major groups and stakeholders, legal professionals, implementing authorities and others engaged in facilitating broad access to information, public participation and justice in environmental matters.  

Multi-stakeholder coordination mechanisms can be particularly helpful in fostering collaboration between governmental agencies and research institutions. These institutions can play important roles in monitoring and promoting evidence-based policy to achieve national air quality strategies and clean air plans and in guiding research and investment in specific focus areas. They can also spur more concrete and focused action by requiring voluntary, specific and measurable commitments from the businesses, academic institutions, grassroots collectives, public entities and individual citizens who sign on. South Korea’s co-creation approach to fine dust (PM2.5) management, documented in this OECD case study, provides a replicable model for institutionalizing multi-stakeholder decision-making, with public communication as a core program component.  

South Australia EPA's community engagement methodology offers one example of a governance model for citizens’ advisory panels—one that designates a lead communicator, defines the roles of regulators, health agencies, and community working groups, and scales activity from informing to consulting to genuinely involving residents in decisions. For citizens' advisory panels, such a model gives community input a defined place in identifying problems and in proposing policies, projects, and regulatory changes, rather than leaving participation to chance. Communicators are what keep it working: by convening active dialogue among citizens, local governments, public agencies, universities, financial institutions and businesses — and by sustaining that dialogue through practical channels such as a website, newsletter, social media, publications, and in-person forums for expert presentations and educational sessions. 

02 Lead on open data and full transparency

Full open access to real-time air quality data (See Stage 4, Step 8 of the Air Quality Monitoring Guidance) is more than a technical achievement — it is a statement of trust in the public. OpenAQ's 2024 assessment of the global data landscape found that barely a quarter of countries provide full, easy public access to the most useful air quality data, a gap that holds back clean air progress even as more countries have begun monitoring and publishing openly since 2022.    

At Stage 5, the commitment extends beyond publishing data to building infrastructure that lets researchers, journalists, civil society, neighboring jurisdictions and others download, analyze and build on it themselves. For example, Airparif (the independent air quality observatory for the Greater Paris area) has established an open-data portal, which provides downloadable datasets and APIs with raw and validated air quality data, including pollutant concentrations by monitoring station (e.g., NO₂, PM₁₀, PM₂.₅, O₃), emissions, exposure indicators, air quality indexes, pollution episodes, mapped concentrations, and historical annual assessments for the Île-de-France region. This open data is widely used by researchers (see list of scientific publications using Airparif data) and civil society organizations alike (see this interactive map of exposure levels at schools developed by the NGO Respire).  

Mexico City’s open monitoring data powers the public AIRE y Salud platform — including a risk index for susceptible groups — and the city is developing a location-aware mobile app that will tailor alerts to where a user is and whether they are older, a child, or have a health condition.  

Open-source hardware built by private developers further lowers the barrier to data. AirGradient, designed and built in Chiang Mai, publishes fully open-source monitor designs, an open API and a public map, and shares its readings into the global commons. AirQo provides over ten million records of African air quality data for anyone to integrate into apps, plugins and dashboards, alongside its own free forecast app for cities across the continent. OpenAQ — a global open-source platform that harmonizes and aggregates air quality measurements from hundreds of sources worldwide — serves as a global depository for researchers. 

03 Report on progress and setbacks

At Stage 5, stakeholders want more than awareness campaigns. They want to know whether the air is getting cleaner, and why or why not. Accountability reporting answers that on a regular, credible schedule — going beyond data publication to explain what is driving or hampering progress. An annual or biennial "State of the Air" report is useful in translating the work of air quality managers into an accessible narrative, from China's State of the Ecology and Environment report, with air quality as a major section, to South Africa's National Air Quality Officer's report and Germany's yearly air quality evaluation. A public dashboard can also be helpful to track headline indicators against targets, linked to underlying monitoring and compliance data — as India's PRANA dashboard does for National Clean Air Programme progress.  

Encourage independent scrutiny. External audits of air quality management such as this Victoria, Australia's Auditor’s Office review of its air quality program— covering monitoring network coverage, data accessibility and the adequacy of public communication itself — provide credibility no self-assessment can. Civil society progress assessments, such as independent tracking of India’s national clean air program, play a parallel role from outside the government (CREA, 2025).  

Comparative performance reporting can also sharpen the incentive. National programs that rank cities on air quality management — combining assessment with financial incentives and public recognition — can have measurable effects: analysis of a national clean air survey and ranking program documents how structured city rankings drive both action and reporting quality, and research on urban air quality ranking and disclosure finds that environmental information disclosure measurably reduced industrial emissions (WRI, 2022; Yang et al., 2024). Award programs such as the European Green Capital Award recognize one city per year that has a consistent record of achieving high environmental standards.  

04 Co-design ambitious interventions — and build the public support they need

Interventions such as low-emission zones, congestion pricing, improved fuel standards, and industrial emissions abatement deliver some of the largest reductions in air pollution, yet are often among the most contested. Jurisdictions weigh and pilot these actions at many stages of maturity, but Stage 5 is where a program typically has the credibility, data, and relationships to overcome the public opposition these measures can provoke. Whether that opposition hardens or softens depends less on the technical design than on effective stakeholder engagement and messaging.

Policy analysis of the social challenges of low-emission zones across EU cities finds that opposition usually centers on the unequal burden imposed on residents, lower-income drivers, and small businesses, and that support is built or eroded by how authorities engage with those fairness concerns (IEEP, 2024). Map who is affected, prioritize by impact, and engage them early and often — from the design phase, not just before rollout. Explain clearly, discuss openly, and take on board the views of residents, drivers, small businesses, and transport operators when shaping boundary lines, exemption categories, phase-in schedules, mitigation funds, and alternative mobility offers. Engagement of this kind surfaces objections while they can still be addressed, converts a portion of opponents into partners, and produces visible evidence of the implementing authority's responsiveness. (IEEP, 2024)

Clear and consistent communication through two-way channels is key. Target messages to address who is affected, what their concerns are, and how revenues and benefits are shared. Frame those benefits in terms of how many lives are improved, rather than in concentrations. A study of public acceptance of Jakarta's historic-district low-emission zone (Rizki et al, 2022) found that support was driven by trust in government, environmental concern, and social norms, all levers communication can move.  

Finally, build in plans to regularly monitor and evaluate stakeholder engagement strategies. Set up key performance indicators (KPIs) to track outcomes. Tie the intervention's communications to the accountability infrastructure described in Step 3 above, and publish before-and-after results for the affected areas; use surveys and feedback forms to gauge effectiveness; and use what you learn to refine the design and messaging. The strongest argument for the next ambitious intervention is the visible, data-backed success of the last one. 

05  Drive systems-level narrative change

At Stage 5, communications must address the deeper drivers of air pollution — energy systems, urban planning, transport, agricultural, and waste management practices — and connect clean air to the larger project of sustainable development. The goal is to frame air quality not as a standalone environmental concern but as a thread running through a jurisdiction's climate, health, mobility, and economic goals.

Build on the integrated clean air–climate approach established in earlier stages and make it a core narrative tool. World Bank analysis on integrating air quality management and climate change mitigation demonstrates how co-benefit framing — presenting clean air action as benefiting climate action and vice versa — has built broader public and political support across many contexts (World Bank, 2023). A systems-level narrative that moves fluently between the two, anchored in local evidence, reaches audiences that neither reaches alone (see also Decision Support Guidance, Stage 5, Step 8 on communicating integrated assessment findings, and Legal Framework and Policy Design Guidance Stage 5, Step 7 on the integrated clean air–climate approach). The same logic extends beyond climate. The strongest Stage 5 narratives situate clean air within the jurisdiction's broader commitments to mobility, green space, public health, and economic development, so that every sector sees its own agenda advanced by cleaner air.

China's succession of national clean-air action plans — the 2013 Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan, the 2018 Blue Sky Defense Battle plan, and the 2023 Action Plan for Continuous Improvement of Air Quality — have progressively fused clean-air action with the country's climate and economic goals, framing it as one line of a coordinated push to cut carbon, reduce pollution, expand green space and grow the economy. These plans sit within China's 15th Five-Year Plan for Building a Beautiful China (2026–2030), which carries the integration forward — folding air-quality targets, carbon and non-CO₂ mitigation, public health and ecological protection into a single agenda. Peer-reviewed research quantifying the health and economic co-benefits of tackling air pollutants and greenhouse gases together (Xiao et al., 2026), and Clean Air Asia's "China Air" progress reports (Clean Air Asia, 2024), give communicators hard numbers on lives saved and money gained to share with stakeholders and the media. The Global Economic Assessment of Climate and Clean Air highlights that tackling shared sources of climate change and air pollution through an integrated package boosts total economic benefits to approximately 11.4 percent of global GDP by 2100, more than either achieves alone (UNEP/CCAC, 2026).

Bogotá's Zonas Urbanas por un Mejor Aire (ZUMA) is another example of what this integration looks like in practice. In its first ZUMA, or clean air zone, the city focused on addressing the multiple needs of a single district by taking comprehensive actions that a siloed program would typically handle separately. This included modernizing the diesel freight fleet, repaving roads and expanding safe walking and cycling, planting trees and building urban gardens, green roofs and urban forests for 'a healthier, more resilient environment', and embedding the whole design in the city's territorial development plan. For a Stage 5 communicator, this is the systems-level narrative made concrete: air quality told as one story with climate, mobility, green space and urban development — and delivered first in a low-income area, so that environmental and social goals advance together.   

06 Make clean air part of a city’s identity

Durable change arrives when clean air stops being a government program and becomes part of what a city or country understands itself to be — a source of pride, aspiration, and civic commitment, and increasingly a competitive asset woven into its economic story. Building that identity involves engaging artists, educators, athletes, cultural institutions, and faith communities to weave clean air into the fabric of public life. Framing clean air as a route to a more prosperous, inviting and investable city reaches finance, tourism and economic-development audiences that a health message alone may not.

The economic case for clean air is strong. C40's case for clean air as central to a city's health and economic growth shows how leaders can frame air quality action as a driver of tourism, talent, and green investment rather than a regulatory burden (C40, 2019). The economic evidence is strong: as a result of the Clean Air Act, the United States experienced decades in which cleaner air and a growing economy went hand in hand with fewer premature deaths, lower medical costs, fewer lost workdays, and higher productivity.  

The economic case for integrated climate and clean air action is even stronger. The ​​​​Global Economic Assessment of Climate and Clean Air (UNEP/CCAC, 2026) provides the most complete picture to date of the benefits and costs of integrated action, finding it can deliver greater economic and health benefits than acting on climate change or air pollution alone, and that these benefits materialize quickly enough to outweigh costs within the first decade. It further shows that the chief obstacles to capturing these gains are often neither technological nor economic but institutional.  

This is where communications becomes decisive. By applying the same integrated climate–clean air analysis to their own local solutions, cities and regions can produce concrete local data on the health and economic benefits of action — and then communicate those findings persistently to media, stakeholders and the public. Local numbers, tied to local jobs, hospitals and neighborhoods, are what turn an abstract economic case into political will — and political will is what removes institutional obstacles like fragmented mandates, siloed budgets, and competing priorities across ministries. When every government department sees its own agenda advanced by cleaner air, clean air can become part of a larger movement for a prosperous future.  

07 Lead regional cooperation on shared air 

Air pollution does not respect administrative boundaries, and a Stage 5 jurisdiction increasingly operates at airshed scale — engaging neighboring cities, regions and countries whose emissions and populations are linked to its own. A growing number of regional frameworks for cooperation are emerging around the world to enable cross-border cooperation, including the Regional Action Plan on Air Quality for Latin America and the Caribbean, the West Asia Quality Network, Asia-Pacific Regional Action Programme on Air Pollution (RAPAP) and the Air Quality Central Asia Platform.

Regional cooperation enables joint strategies that a single jurisdiction cannot achieve alone. It also requires specific communication strategies. The first priority is to build trust.  When jurisdictions share monitoring data, each side must have confidence that the others' figures are accurate and honest. Pollution alerts must also be consistent across the border, so that people on each side receive the same warning during a shared episode. Thirdly, the public must understand that action at home and cooperation with neighbors are not competing choices — they are both needed to clean the air everyone shares. (See Legal Framework and Policy Design Guidance, Stage 4, Step 6 for more details on the airshed approach). If communicated effectively, regional leadership becomes a narrative asset at home — positioning the jurisdiction as a standard-setter and giving domestic audiences a source of earned pride. 

08 Build a community of practice

One of the greatest contributions a Stage 5 jurisdiction can make is to support others on the journey. Communities of practice and other types of government-research partnerships enable regional cooperation (Step 7) and evidence-sharing (covered in Step 9 below) by building the relationships of trust among peer cities, regional authorities and national authorities needed to move forward. The lessons learned in specific contexts across five stages of guidance on the AQMx platform — what worked, what failed, what would have been done differently — are precisely what jurisdictions at Stages 1 through 3 most need.  

These include initiatives such as the Africa-led Methane Community of Practice (AMCoP) and the KEMRI-University of Liverpool Air Pollution Centre of Excellence that provide state-of-the-art laboratory facilities for coordinated joint research, as well as sharing of experience, data, and policymaking expertise. Among public relations practitioners, community building can be achieved through hosting peer exchanges and study visits; seconding communications staff to partner jurisdictions; contributing templates, evaluation instruments and campaign materials to shared libraries; and mentoring specific peer cities through their own stage transitions.  

Global platforms are also available to connect communities. The BreatheLife campaign — the joint WHO, UNEP, CCAC and World Bank platform — brings together cities, regions and countries publicly committed to shared clean air leadership; Breathe Cities — delivered by the Clean Air Fund, C40 Cities and Bloomberg Philanthropies — pairs air quality data with community engagement and sustainable-city planning across a growing group of cities on five continents. And the C40 Clean Air Accelerator brings together more than 50 cities to speed up this shift and meet WHO air quality guidelines.  

09 Evaluate, learn and share the evidence

Stage 5 carries a clear responsibility: to evaluate communications and engagement rigorously, and to share what it learns with the wider community. Build evaluation into program design from the start — with defined objectives, indicators and reporting — and set a regular public schedule that mirrors the assessment cycle of the decision support framework (see Decision Support Guidance, Stage 5, Step 9). Each finding should be reflected in the next planning cycle.

Measure against a baseline, and measure over time. The most credible programs ask their questions before a campaign begins and return to the same questions afterward, ideally following the same communities over several years. Bogotá's recurring citizen perception survey is a practical example: the city asks residents the same questions at regular intervals and breaks down the results by locality and demographic group, so it can see not only whether perceptions are shifting but also whether its communication is reaching every community equally. Where conditions allow, strengthen this with a comparison design — for example, comparing neighborhoods a campaign has reached against similar ones it has not.

Measure what people do, not only what they know. A 2025 global review of air quality communication found that campaigns work best when they move beyond top-down awareness toward action, by addressing both people's ability to act and their motivation to do so (Cibin et al., 2025). Design your evaluation to detect that difference — not simply to confirm whether a message was seen or heard. Then publish, and contribute to the field. A review of more than six decades of air pollution science communication shows how heavily the global evidence base leans on a few high-income countries, with Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia significantly underrepresented (Pfleger et al., 2023). Programs in these regions that document and publish their work are therefore filling a real gap in global knowledge. Narrative accounts are also useful: this retrospective on how Japan overcame severe air and water pollution in the 1950s and 1960s was written for countries with less developed air quality management and remains widely used decades later (Iwasaki, 2008).

A mature program treats its evaluations as a public good. It publishes negative results as well as positive ones, documents its methods so others can reuse them, and contributes reports, tools, templates and campaign materials to the AQMx Library and to the networks and communities of practice built in Steps 7 and 8 — so others can build on proven work rather than start from scratch. In doing so, it models the accountability it asks of everyone else and leaves the path better marked than it found it.