Blue Forest Conservation Partners with Clarity Movement Co. to Quantify the Public Health Impacts of Wildfire Smoke with Hyperlocal Air Quality Data

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 10/28/20

Ryan Higgins
Clarity Movement Co. 
925.202.9757
ryan@clarity.io

Blue Forest Conservation Partners with Clarity Movement Co. to Quantify the Public Health Impacts of Wildfire Smoke with Hyperlocal Air Quality Data

Innovative environmental finance non-profit focused on sustainable forest management will leverage high-resolution air quality data to quantify and manage the public health impacts of wildfire smoke in California and across the United States.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA: Clarity Movement Co. announced today a new partnership with Blue Forest Conservation. Blue Forest and partners will leverage Clarity’s air quality data monitoring platform to better understand, quantify, and manage the public health impacts of wildfire smoke. 

Blue Forest facilitates forest management projects in California and other Western states by obtaining private capital to finance underfunded projects on private and public lands. Blue Forest finances projects that reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire and create healthier ecosystems that provide tangible benefits to the stakeholders that contribute to their projects as well as to the general public. 

Air quality is a significant public health benefit from investment in forests that reduce the risk of high-intensity catastrophic wildfire. Wildfire smoke has blanketed California for months, but without high-resolution and accurate air quality data it is difficult to associate smoke events and public health outcomes. With access to Clarity’s air pollution monitoring data platform and sensing-as-a-service air quality monitors, Blue Forest will be able to better quantify the impacts of wildfire smoke for downwind communities and access funding from unconventional stakeholders such as healthcare providers and local, county and state governments.

“This summer, wildfire smoke across the western US has reached hazardous levels for millions of people for extended periods of time. We know this is horrible for public health and at a significant cost in addition to the loss of life, devastation to communities, infrastructure, forests, and water resources,” says Nick Wobbrock, Co-Founder & COO at Blue Forest. “With this exciting partnership with Clarity, we can quantitatively monitor air quality precisely, in real time, and for communities adjacent to our forest resiliency projects. This will further inform the importance of investing in our forests for the sake of our forests, communities, public health, and resilience to climate change.”

“With wildfires becoming larger and more common across California and the western United States, we are thrilled to partner with a company that is working to create more resilient ecosystems and mitigate the risk of major fires.” says David Lu, CEO at Clarity Movement Co. “Wildfire smoke presents a myriad of public health risks and puts sensitive populations at risk of developing more serious conditions. Researchers at Stanford estimate that wildfire smoke caused over 1,000 preventable deaths in California this year alone. Our air quality data subscriptions and sensing-as-a-service solution provide decision-makers with the data they need to make informed decisions when it comes to taking action on air pollution.”

Leveraging Clarity’s high-resolution air quality data, Blue Forest will be able to: 

• Precisely measure the exposure of downwind communities to wildfire smoke during both prescribed burns and major wildfire events. 
• Associate exposure to fire-related air pollution with health outcomes.
• Better quantify the public health and economic costs of wildfire smoke events. 
• Pursue additional financial support for forest management projects from new stakeholders that value public health and air quality, such as healthcare providers and local, county, and state governments.

About Blue Forest Conservation: Blue Forest is a mission-driven, non-profit organization, leveraging financial innovation to create sustainable investment solutions to environmental challenges. Our principal financial product, the Forest Resilience Bond (FRB), deploys private capital to finance forest restoration projects on public lands that reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire.

About Clarity Movement Co.: At Clarity, we strive to empower the world to reduce air pollution. We do that by making it accessible for industries and governments to measure and understand their air pollution issues and take effective action. Our solution is currently deployed in over 90 cities across 48 countries and changing how cities and industrial facilities monitor their air quality.

###