[#1] Air Pollution: Full interview with Piotr of Nafas
The unabridged interview with Piotr Jakubowski, Co-Founder of Nafas
This interview is a part of issue #1 of Climate starts with SEA’s newsletter. You can view the full newsletter here and subscribe to receive future issues on in your inbox here.
Why were you initially inspired to tackle the air pollution issue?
Before building Nafas I had the amazing opportunity to run marketing and brand as Chief Marketing Office at Gojek - this was my first experience in the startup world and had shown me that mobile technology can truly solve emerging markets problems.
I knew my next thing would be in climate, but I wasn’t quite sure which industry so I started researching. I looked at alternative energy ( plastic waste to energy conversion, solar microgrids), access to clean water (water desalination), alternative transportation (electric vehicles) and air pollution.
As part of my air pollution research, I started measuring air quality at my house - my wife and I had selected a house because of the awesome garden, thinking that it would be our oasis of safety from Jakarta’s toxic air. It turned out that the garden had zero impact on air quality, and what’s worse is that it was almost exactly the same inside.
At this point in time, Nathan Roestandy and I had reconnected around this issue (we had gone to the same school) as he was already building something in the space.
We decided then to join together, and the framework for Nafas born.
How exactly is Nafas solving it?
Before answering this question, we need to first understand just how complex the air pollution problem is.
Particle and gas pollutants are produced in enormous quantities, which primarily happens when we burn things.
Electricity - burning fuel. Transportation - burning fuel. Manufacturing - burning fuel. Agriculture - burning waste. Construction - burning fuel & generating dust.
Air pollution is actually two-sided problem - human activity produces pollutants and these pollutants cause major health problems as we breathe them over our lifetimes. We can call this production and consumption.
Ultimately, we need to reduce the production of pollutants - ideally to zero. However, this process takes decades as we need to find alternatives to each of the highly pollutive industries highlighted above - Transportation, Waste Management, Construction, Energy, Manufacturing, Agriculture.
That’s why today, Nafas has installed almost 200 outdoor air quality monitors in 15 cities, primarily in residential areas. So that you can see how all this production of pollutants is impacting the air that you breathe.
In the short and medium term, we need to reduce our consumption of these pollutants - also ideally to zero. This means that we need to avoid breathing in polluted air while we wait for the production of pollutants to go down. This is really difficult because the air we breathe is not like the food that we eat or water we drink - we don’t really have much control over it, at least outside.
That’s where Nafas comes in - our mission from day one has remained unchanged:
Our mission is to make access to healthy air quality easier and cheaper.
Nafas is building Indonesia’s first end to end air quality ecosystem, we’re combining indoor and outdoor air quality data to fulfil our mission in helping people breathe healthier by reducing their consumption of this air pollution.
Why easier? Data drives habits, especially among people who prioritise health. We make the user experience around “breathing healthy” simple - we tell you when it’s good or not good to be outside, we’ve made turning air quality healthy in buildings into a simple data-driven service, and we are working on developing an even simpler way for you to track your progress.
Public Health science is unanimous - PM2.5 pollution is dangerous to our health. If we are stuck in an environment where PM2.5 will remain unchanged, then Nafas will be there to make sure you’re breathing as little of it as possible.
Why cheaper? Access to healthy air is expensive. It’s also complex. This was a personal challenge as well - why did I need to pay $1000 for a device and then $200 every 3 months for a filter? And I didn’t even know if it was doing its job. The way we think about the healthy air that we need to breathe needs to change, and it needs to be more accessible.
The user experience around healthy air is, like our buildings, broken. Nafas will fix it.
But that’s not it. While reducing people’s consumption of air pollution, we are also supporting multiple research studies as well as providing information needed to create the right types of policies the country needs to reduce the production of this pollution.
Which brings us to the next point…
What is one misconception about air pollution that you’d like readers to know?
There is no silver bullet.
There is not one magical switch that will turn off pollution.
EVERYTHING is contributing to it. It’s the factories, the cars, the power plants, the ports, the construction, the ships, the agricultural burning. Everything including the satpam down the street burning leaves and trash.
Air pollution is a systemic problem - meaning that the entire ecosystem of the way we do things needs to change. The ONLY way that this can be done is through a data-informed long term pollution reduction strategy - Clean Air Acts in the UK, US and China were brought into law in 1956, 1970 and 2013. And the impact of these have been significant.
Our cities are sick. And what do we do when we are sick? We head to the doctor to run tests to figure out the root cause of our issues.
In the air pollution world this is called a Source Apportionment study - where we can literally take each particle of PM2.5 that contributes to a given city’s air pollution problem and figure out exactly where it is coming from. This root cause information allows policymakers to determine the cost and benefits of reducing various sources.
Until this is done, our world will be reduced to the Spiderman meme - pointing at each other to lay blame on a problem that is now putting thousands of kids in the hospital.
There is no silver bullet, and until we accept that we cannot move forward.
What actions can readers take now to support your cause?
First and foremost, please make sure to get as informed about the issue as possible. There are plenty of other misconceptions around that give us a false sense of security including planting trees will solve the problem (it won’t, trees don’t remove PM2.5), reducing cars will solve the problem (it won’t, it’s a systemic issue) and the weather will clear things up (we’re in the middle of climate change so we can’t really rely on the weather much). You can follow Nafas on Instagram/Twitter or read through the articles that we have published on our Blog and in our App.
Second, start making adjustments to your own lifestyle to reduce your own exposure (consumption) to air pollution particles. This means that you will need to use an app like Nafas to make decisions on your day to day life - exercise outside or inside? Should kids play outside or inside?
If you need to be outside, wear an N95 mask if you can. If you can be inside, make sure the indoor air quality is good. If you can only afford 1 air purifier, put it in your bedroom (you’re there for almost 1/3 of the day if not longer). You can choose the places your kids go to school or where you work based on access to healthy air quality as well.
Last, make your voice heard. Elections in Indonesia are right around the corner - there’s no reason this shouldn’t be on the agenda.
Make your voice heard not just about the policy but about its enforcement. Trash burning has been illegal in Jakarta since a governor by the name of Jokowi signed a law in 2013, yet it still happens on a daily basis.
The more we keep talking about the issue, the more likely we are to push for the long term change that we need.
LEARN about the problem
REDUCE your exposure to pollution
SPEAK up to policymakers
What do you do when you’re not saving the world?
As much as possible I try to spend time with my wife and two daughters - they are 3 years old and 6 weeks old. Starting a family has been one of the most amazing and life-changing stages of my own life as it is constantly challenging me to become a better husband, father and person.
Being with my family also helps me realise what is actually important in life.
They also inspire me in the belief that we are stewards of the future for them.