Hamburg. The Hamburg-based air quality management startup Breeze Technologies has been certified as a social business by The Grameen Creative Lab. “It is a huge honor for our organization to become certified as a social business. This certification underlines our impact in creating transparency about air pollution and supporting organizations world-wide in creating a healthier and more livable environment”, says Robert Heinecke, Breeze Technologies’ Founder and CEO. The certification is based off the 7 principles of social business defined by Nobel Peace Laureate Prof. Mohammed Yunus: O ..read more

This article is an introduction into the topics of air quality sensors and air quality management for smart cities and is intended to be smart city managers’ first point of contact with this topic. In the following, we will provide a basic overview of this topic. Please visit our air quality knowledge database for more information on specific topics. Air pollution – and thereby air quality – is one of the most important topics of our time. According to the World Health Organization WHO, 9 out of 10 people globally live in areas with too high levels of air pollution. At the same time, some of ..read more

At Breeze Technologies, we regularly evaluate our air quality index (AQI) based on recent scientific insights and publications from international institutions such as the World Health Organization (WHO). Our AQI is mainly developed from the CAQI (Common Air Quality Index) of the European Environment Agency EEA, extended by additional air quality parameters that do not appear in the CAQI. During one of our our recent reviews, we noted that the ozone ratings in the CAQI was adapted based on recent publications of the WHO. Based on these changes, we also updated our AQI to better reflect the cur ..read more

unsplash.com / Shane Rounce Air pollution affects everyone, and while in many countries it remains an invisible threat, public awareness about the issue has continued to rise throughout the last decade. Hence many of our urban air quality monitoring projects with cities come about after inquiries of citizens to their municipal administration about the state of local air quality. Cities then start deploying monitoring technology to be able to answer citizen requests, either directly or through tools like our public air quality information portal. But even when the initial impulse for an air qua ..read more

Hamburg and Ljubljana. The International Research Centre in Artificial Intelligence under the auspices of UNESCO (IRCAI), has selected Breeze Technologies’ Environmental Intelligence Cloud (EIC) among the 2022-2023 global top 100 artificial intelligence projects addressing the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. Breeze’s air quality platform was selected as an “excellent” solution among the categories of “outstanding”, “excellent”, “promising”, and “early stage”. IRCAI drafted a call for solutions with global relevance and, with the engagement of members of its Business and Impact Council, p ..read more

As a leading provider of air quality monitoring and management solutions, we are thrilled to announce that Breeze Technologies has been named winner of the World Future Awards’ category “Best air pollution solutions for 2023“. This prestigious award recognizes our innovative technology and outstanding achievements in the field of air pollution management. Air pollution management is a rapidly growing field that uses technologies like sensors, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to enhance the capabilities of decision makers in municipalities, businesses and other organizations to im ..read more

unsplash.com / Georgiana Avram Stemming from pagan and clerical roots, Easter fires (also called Paschal fires) are part of German tradition. They are typically performed around sunset on Holy Saturday or on Easter Sunday. Because there is often a larger amount of these bonfires happening at around the same time in a city, there can be significant impact on local air pollution levels, as shown with example data from two of Breeze Technologies’ air quality monitoring locations in Hamburg, Germany, below: Particulate matter levels around the Easter weekend in Hamburg, Germany This year, Easter ..read more

Hamburg and Blankenburg. Today, Germany’s first fully automated, air quality-based wildfire detection system has been launched in Blankenburg (Harz). The system is based on an artificial intelligence developed by the Hamburg-based startup Breeze Technologies and processes air quality data collected by sensors in real time. The implementation was made possible through a collaboration between Breeze Technologies and the Blankenburg-based forest innovation hub Future Forest Initiative. It is supported by local partners such as the city of Blankenburg (Harz) and the volunteer fire department Blan ..read more

The 2008/50/EC Directive’s sampling point requirement introduces and examines the main question of when air pollutants should be measured. The Directive further examines different types of urban air quality monitoring locations: where should these monitoring stations be located and what is the requirement of the monitoring locations? Read on more to learn about the different monitoring stations. What kind of monitoring stations exist? Monitoring stations provide valuable information to standardize reliable and representative results of air pollutants in the vicinity. This monitoring is done b ..read more

The story of the canary in the gold mine is one that is an important part of British History. Similarly, this expression, once part of an important discovery, can be said as the same thing as early air quality detection. What is the history with the canary and the gold mine? How is it relevant to early air quality detection? Read on more to find out. The story of the canary in the gold mine The story of the canary dates back to 1911 and ends in 1986. Canaries were used during this time period to detect carbon monoxide and other toxic gasses before they hurt miners. How were they exactly used ..read more