Air Pollution and Productivity at work

General

1.2 billion workdays are lost due to air pollution, projected to reach 3.8 billion days by 2060 (McKelvey, 2025)
CBI calculates that 3 million work days lost to illness could be regained if air pollution is reduced to WHO guideline levels (Healthy Air Coalition, 2025)
Two studies found that breathing better air in offices led to significantly better decision-making performance among participants (Harvard Business Review, 2017)
Across China's manufacturing sector, each 1 μg/m³ reduction in PM2.5 increased firm productivity by 0.82% (Fu et al., 2021).
In an Indian garment factory, a one-standard-deviation rise in fine particulate pollution cut worker efficiency by about 1.6% of average productivity (Adhvaryu et al., 2022).
Managers reduced pollution-related productivity losses by moving the most sensitive workers to other tasks, while less attentive managers did this less and recovered less output (Adhvaryu et al., 2022).
In Chinese textile mills, a 10 μg/m³ rise in PM2.5 sustained over 25 days reduced workers' daily output by about 1%, although same-day pollution had no measurable effect (He et al., 2019).