Voluntary commitments to implement clean air strategies have the potential to reduce business operation costs and to prevent smog and fine particle pollution. Help clean the air in central Indiana by implementing some or all of these clean air strategies year-round. After all, clean air is everyone's business!

2. Use the Air Quality Index to determine work assignments.
Call the Air Quality phone line at (317) 327-4AIR (4247) to hear the latest information about air quality throughout central Indiana before making daily work assignments.

3. Encourage carpooling or vanpooling.
Ask employees to carpool to meetings during the day. This will not only reduce air pollution, but carpooling also helps your bottom line. Click here for a commute cost calculator and see how much your employees spend each month driving.

Better yet, organize company carpools and offer preferred parking to employees that do carpool to work. Central Indiana Commuter Services provides mobility solutions and commute options free of charge to all employers in the nine county central Indiana region. Please call (317) 327-RIDE or visit www.327RIDE.net for more information.

4.  Subsidize public transportation.
Ask employees to take the bus to meetings or to work. Taking the bus helps reduce air pollution since there will be fewer vehicles on the road. In Marion County, please call IndyGo at (317) 635-3344 or visit www.IndyGo.net for more information about bus routes and schedules.

5.  Refuel vehicles and equipment at the end of the work day -- preferably after 6 p.m. -- rather than at its beginning.
Sunlight plays an important role in smog formation. By waiting until later in the day, the exhaust from engines and vapors that escape from gas pumps and cans have less time to react to the sunlight. 

6.  Adopt a company-wide "Idle-Reduction" policy.
Ask employees to limit engine idling when possible. Reducing the time an engine idles will not only improve air quality, but will also result in significant fuel cost savings to businesses as less gas is consumed. Click here for a cost savings calculator.

7. Service fleet vehicles regularly.
Tune-ups, oil changes and proper tire inflation reduce emissions and save money.

9. Implement a company-wide "Clean Air" policy.
This policy can include items like:

• Limiting or discontinuing pollution-causing operations that are not essential like mowing or painting a building on Knozone Action Days.
• Using water-based paints. Oil-based paints and solvents release vapors that are precursors to smog formation.
• Asking on-site daycare facilities to plan indoor activities for children in the afternoon when ground-level ozone or fine particle levels are highest.
• Incorporating many of the other action items on this list.

Be sure to follow through. Make sure employees and contractors are aware of the air pollution reduction actions they are expected to take.

10. Offer alternative work schedules.
Offer employees flexible work schedules, compressed work weeks or telecommuting options to help reduce traffic and auto emissions.

11.  Provide incentives to park and go inside.
If your business uses a drive thru, ask customers to park and go inside on Knozone Action Days. By asking customers to limit engine idling, less gas is used and less air pollution is created.

12. Explore the possibilities of alternative-powered vehicles.
Convert fleet vehicles to alternative powered vehicles if possible. Hybrid vehicles and flexible-fueled vehicles (like those with ethanol-based gasoline engines) reduce auto emissions and decrease gasoline costs.

13. Reduce industrial emissions.
Reduce your company's industrial emissions by installing emission control devices to recover and recycle emissions.

14. Retrofit older diesel vehicles with clean diesel technology.
Diesel exhaust is responsible for more than 20% of the nation's smog-causing nitrogen oxide emissions and 15% of particulate matter (soot) emissions. In fact, one old and dirty diesel vehicle can emit almost 8 tons of pollution per year, or a total of 160 to 240 tons of pollution over the life of the engine. Retrofit technologies focus on adding a catalyst or filter to the diesel engine, replacing engines earlier, using cleaner fuels or additives or some combination of these techniques. For more information, please visit the U.S. EPA's website by clicking here.