Under the Clean Air Agreement (Dutch acronym: SLA), subtitled ‘Health benefits for everyone in the Netherlands’, municipal and provincial authorities can apply for a special government grant, known as SPUK, for measures geared to improving public health through direct emissions reduction. Authorities must include an indicative calculation of the envisaged reductions of the main pollutants and the health damage thus avoided, permitting assessment of whether the SPUK grant would be cost-effective, i.e. less than the health benefits it would give rise to, expressed as avoided damage costs.
This report reviews the health benefits of reduced atmospheric emissions of pollutants contributing to particulate matter (PM) formation and photochemical smog formation. For the first time, CE Delft has broken down PM health damage according to emission height and population size around the source.
The following pollutants were considered:
The calculation tool and CE Delft’s explanatory text (in Dutch) are available here: https://mijn.rvo.nl/specifieke-uitkering-schone-lucht-akkoord