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Healthy cities, healthy people: Evidence on the benefits of low emission zones from Antwerp and Brussels
Pollution, environmental and human health | Public and global health
A Policy Brief published March 2025
Date (DD-MM-YYYY)
28-06-2025 to 28-06-2026
Available on-demand until 28th June 2026
Cost
Free
Education type
Article
CPD subtype
On-demand
Description
More than 300 cities across Europe have established low emission zones (LEZs) to curb air pollution from urban traffic. While more and more studies demonstrate the effectiveness of LEZs in cleaning up the air and thus preventing ill-health, the need for such zones is increasingly being questioned by the public policy-makers.
This policy brief by Independent Health Insurance Funds (Mutualités Libres) and the Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) shows that the Belgian LEZs in Brussels and Antwerp have led to tangible air quality improvements in a period of only five years, with reductions of NO2 pollution of 30% in Antwerp and 37% in Brussels. For the first time, Belgian cities with an LEZ were compared to 17 Belgian cities without an LEZ. The study population comprised 420,000 individuals living inside the low emission zone, in seventeen control cities or adjacent areas of these cities.
Contrary to popular belief, the Brussels Low Emission Zone has brought benefits, especially for people in the deprived inner-city area, where air pollution has declined more steeply, from 33,44 ug/ m3 to 21,69 ug/ m3 for NO2, and black carbon pollution has almost halved.
As cities across Belgium and the other EU member states prepare to implement more health-protective clean air standards, low emission zones are an essential tool for reaching the new objectives for 2030 set in the new EU’s Ambient Air Quality Directives.
The continued implementation and tightening of LEZs is also key for advancing the transition to more sustainable and health-promoting urban transport systems.
Contact details
Email address
Telephone number
+32 2 329 00 80

Avenue des Arts 7/8
Brussels
1210