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Booklet
Air quality offsets as an instrument for air quality management in South Africa
Year of Publication : 2025
Language : en
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Abstract (English) : To date, action to improve air quality in South Africa has focused on reducing emissions from industrial sources. This has led to measurable improvements in air quality in some industrial areas like the Vaal Triangle. Still, air pollution levels have remained above ambient air quality standards, and even worsened in large parts of the country, particularly low-income urban areas where many people live. Air quality offsets offer great potential to leverage resources and address air pollution in previously neglected areas.
According to the Air Quality Offsets Guideline (2016), air quality offsets are ‘interventions… implemented to counter- balance the adverse and residual environmental impacts of atmospheric emissions to deliver a net ambient air quality benefit within, but not limited to, the affected airshed where ambient air quality standards are being or have the potential to be exceeded and whereby opportunities and need for offsetting exist.’ In practice, they usually take the form of substituting a polluting fuel source for a cleaner fuel source in a low-income household, for example, retrofitting homes for increased thermal comfort in combination with swopping a coal stove for a liquid petroleum gas (LPG) stove, or a waste collection and recycling programme in under-serviced areas to reduce waste burning.
Industries applying for an atmospheric emission license must implement air quality offsets conditions to support and ensure compliance with the legislated emission standards. As a result, significant investments have already been made in air quality offsets. While household and community emission reduction initiatives are implemented worldwide, and some countries have emission trading programmes for pollutants like NOx and SO2, the notion of a facility reducing emissions of one pollutant from a source they do not own, to offset their own emissions of a different pollutant, is uniquely South African.
Description : 5 Pages
Publisher : Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)
Citation : Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf), (2025). Air quality offsets as an instrument for air quality management in South Africa.[Online] Available at: DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/assaf.2025/114
Sponsorship : Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)
Peer Review Status : Peer-Reviewed
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