In recent years, there has been a significant increase in air quality data and information publicly available. This led to ranking cities according to degree of air pollution, which can be misleading as air quality levels is affected by several factors, including meteorology, topography, emissions, etc.

To address this, Clean Air Asia developed the Clean Air Scorecard (CAS) tool in 2010 with the aim of providing an objective assessment of air quality management in cities. It consists of indexes that assesses air quality levels, air quality management capacity, and policies and actions being implemented to reduce emissions.

The CAS tool also allows for identification of what air quality management areas the city can improve on. The results can be used to can guide cities in identifying and prioritizing actions.

The development of the CAS tool has been initially supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) under the Sustainable Urban Mobility in Asia Program. Since 2014, the UPS Foundation has supported the upgrade of the CAS tool, including enabling a web-based CAS tool to further engage public in assessing their city’s air quality management.

More information on the Clean Air Scorecard Tool is available in the CAS Tool Information Note.