Community-based social marketing: #CambiaMOaria2030
Air pollution and health as part of the “Scuola 2030” project promoted by the Gazzetta di Modena with pupils from Class 5 D of the Liceo Classico Muratori-San Carlo
An agenda with a deadline
The presentation bears a date in its title: 2030. This is not a vague horizon, but a precise deadline set by European Directive No. 2881/2024, which will come into force in January of that year, imposing much stricter limits on air pollutants in Italian cities. It is around this date that the entire structure of the programme proposed by Giuseppe Fattori, lecturer in social marketing at the University of Bologna, revolves. Five sections: experiences, competitors, air quality in cities, the effects of pollution, and finally action, structured as a logical progression that starts with ‘it can be done’ and ends with ‘we must do it now’.
The starting point: the Cambiamo Aria project
Even before delving into the thematic sections, the presentation provides a crucial overview. The national project “Cambiamo Aria. Health and Air Pollution in Italian Cities” — promoted by ISDE Italia in collaboration with the Kyoto Club’s Sustainable Urban Mobility Observatory and the Clean Cities Campaign — systematically analysed official data from the regional monitoring networks of the ARPA and APPA. The aim was threefold: to compare pollutant concentrations with current regulatory limits (Legislative Decree 155/2010), with the stricter limits of the new 2024 European Directive, and with the values recommended by the WHO in its 2021 Guidelines. The result is a tool for public awareness and civic action. Not a document for experts, but a report designed to make citizens aware and capable of taking action.
1. Experiences: change has already happened
The first section of the presentation gathers evidence. Not theories, not abstract models: concrete cases where people’s behaviour has changed because someone designed an environment conducive to change.
The first example is Bella Mossa in Bologna. Every time a citizen chose to walk, cycle or take public transport instead of driving, they received points redeemable for discounts at over a hundred businesses — cafés, restaurants, cinemas, supermarkets, bookshops. The scheme made the sustainable choice both convenient and rewarding. The figures speak for themselves: nearly ten thousand participants, over nine hundred thousand journeys tracked, 3.7 million kilometres travelled sustainably — almost a hundred trips around the world — with 740 tonnes of CO₂ saved. The Work Challenge involved 53 company teams and two thousand employees; the inter-school challenge mobilised 93 primary schools and 1,250 parents. The programme did not ask for sacrifices: it redefined the rules of the game so that the right choice also became the obvious choice.
The second example brings the presentation to the dining table. Fattori outlines the contents of a handbook by the World Resources Institute — Playbook for Guiding Diners Toward Plant-Rich Dishes in Food Service — which describes how to guide restaurant customers towards dishes richer in vegetables.
The scientific premise is clear: for every gram of protein, beef production requires twenty times more land and emits twenty times more greenhouse gases than legumes such as beans, peas and lentils. The CoolFood initiative aims to reduce food-related emissions by 25% by 2030, in line with the 1.5°C limit of the Paris Agreement.
But the most striking aspect concerns language. What a dish is called changes everything: removing the term ‘meat-free’ from menus increased sales of certain dishes by 76%. The word ‘vegan’ proved the least appealing among 21 food labels tested in the United States — it evokes distance, ideology, separation. Even ‘vegetarian’ generates resistance, being associated with healthy but unsatisfying food. Meat-eaters are 56% less likely to order a vegetarian dish if it is isolated in a dedicated section of the menu, compared to when the same options are distributed amongst the other dishes. The message is subtle but powerful: it is not enough to offer the right alternative; you must present it in the right way. Suppliers who have joined the CoolFood programme have served two billion meals a year, reducing emissions per plate by 10%.
The third strand of experiences tackles the most challenging terrain: social media and vaping. The tobacco industry has spent decades perfecting marketing techniques capable of associating cigarettes with values of freedom, seduction and modernity — advertising that even appeared in medical journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association. Those same techniques are now being replicated, in an updated form, by e-cigarette companies on social media: young and glamorous influencers, glossy images, no mention of the risks. One of these unwitting ambassadors, Christina Zayas, showcases her outfits without realising she is part of a tobacco marketing strategy. Meanwhile, Philip Morris Italia has organised a travelling exhibition against youth smoking — a calculated paradox, allowing the company to occupy the field of prevention whilst remaining at the centre of the conversation. The health consequences are mounting: in 2026, cases of obliterative bronchiolitis linked to vaping emerge, and smoking continues to cause 93,000 deaths a year in Italy. The hashtag #invecedifumare — which concludes the section — suggests the social marketing response: do not ban, but replace. Offer something in place of something.
2. The competitors: who occupies the field before us
The second section tackles an uncomfortable question: when trying to communicate science and public health, who already occupies that space? The answer lies in the Kardashian Index, an index proposed by researcher Neil Hall that measures the disparity between a scientist’s visibility on social media and the impact of their publications. The index describes a world in which influencers with millions of followers communicate on health and the environment far more successfully — in terms of reach — than researchers who have dedicated their lives to studying those very same topics. The field of public communication is occupied by voices that operate according to different logic, and anyone wishing to engage in evidence-based communication must come to terms with this asymmetry.
The most detailed case in this section is that of Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish economist and former director of the Danish Environmental Assessment Institute, named by Time as one of the world’s 100 most influential people in 2004. His book The Skeptical Environmentalist argues that, according to most available indicators, the planet is becoming healthier — less pollution, more forests, more food per capita.
His subsequent book False Alarm argues that the most drastic climate policies cost trillions of dollars for minimal results, harming the poorest most of all, and that climate change should be treated as a serious problem but not as an existential emergency. Lomborg openly criticises those who describe climate change as the greatest threat to public health of our time, citing the data: heart disease kills 33% of Americans, cancer 26%, heat 0.31% — a figure on the decline — and extreme weather 0.015%.
The presentation sets out these positions as an example of what social marketing must be able to recognise: influential, well-argued voices capable of building a broad audience, which propose an alternative narrative to the prevailing scientific consensus. Understanding them is the first step in responding.
3. What is the air quality like in Italian cities?
The third section delves into the data. Drawing on European Union sources and the report Air Quality in European Cities 2025, it provides a snapshot of air pollution in Italian cities within the European context. The #CambiaMO aria dossier published by ISDE in January 2026 provides the national picture: the Po Valley, where many of the cities analysed are located, is among the areas with the worst air quality in Europe, due to a combination of heavy traffic, industry, agriculture, livestock farming and meteorological conditions that hinder the dispersion of pollutants.
Reference is also made to the NHAPS (National Human Activity Pattern Survey) study, which estimates that people spend on average around 90% of their time indoors. This figure is crucial: the pollution we breathe in is not only from the streets, but also from indoors — air that accumulates, circulates poorly, and carries with it pollen, fine particulate matter and volatile organic compounds.
The European Environment Agency and the GBD (Global Burden of Disease) framework agree: exposure to air pollutants is among the main health risk factors in Europe, responsible for hundreds of thousands of premature deaths every year.
4. The effects of pollution: an invisible network
The fourth section is the most scientifically dense, mapping the effects of pollution far beyond what is visible on a smoggy day. Pollution is everywhere — in the air, in water, in food, in clothing, in the plastic of everyday objects — and acts through cause-and-effect chains that are often invisible and delayed.
A key area of concern is microplastics. The research cited — from Thompson et al. in Science to Galloway and Lewis in PNAS — documents how plastic dispersed in the oceans breaks down into ever-smaller particles, which enter the food chain and end up in the tissues of living organisms, including humans.
Top-loading domestic washing machines release around seven times more synthetic microfibres than front-loading ones: every wash cycle of a polyester or nylon garment releases thousands of plastic fragments that end up in rivers, seas and, ultimately, human bodies.
The second issue concerns endocrine disruptors. The definition provided by the WHO and UNEP is precise: an endocrine disruptor is an exogenous agent, or a mixture, that alters the function of the endocrine system, causing adverse effects on the health of the organism or its offspring.
Research, compiled in the Endocrine Society’s second scientific report (EDC-2, 2015) and the 2012 WHO/UNEP guidelines, has established a link between exposure to certain chemicals, changes in hormone levels and altered physiological responses: changes in growth, development, fertility and lactation. In many cases, the time lag between exposure and the manifestation of effects can be years or decades.
Bisphenol A (BPA) is the most widely studied endocrine disruptor. Used in the manufacture of plastics, it is also present in synthetic fabrics such as polyester and nylon — materials used in sportswear — to improve their durability, anti-static properties and moisture-wicking ability. Toxic levels of BPA have been detected in bras and in 19 widely available sportswear brands. BPA mimics oestrogen and can disrupt the development of the reproductive, nervous and immune systems, with particularly severe effects in the early stages of life — in the womb and during early childhood. A recent meta-analysis suggests that the effect of individual endocrine disruptors is probably less than previously thought, but that the ‘cocktail’ effect — resulting from simultaneous exposure to multiple agents — is likely the main cause of the observed alterations.
The third chapter of this section is fast fashion. Sixty million workers worldwide are employed in the low-cost clothing industry; 80% are women working in dilapidated facilities, lacking health and safety protections, with wages inadequate for the hours worked. On 24 April 2013, the collapse of the Rana Plaza in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, killed 1,134 people and injured 2,515, tragically and irrefutably exposing the conditions of a production system that shifts its real costs onto the most vulnerable people on the planet. Every garment produced, every synthetic fibre washed, every item of clothing thrown away too soon is a link in this chain.
5. #CambiaMOaria2030: the ten commandments for those who play sport
The final section brings things full circle and offers a concrete solution aimed at a specific audience: sporting teenagers. This choice is no accident.
Those who engage in physical activity breathe faster and more deeply than others, proportionally increasing the amount of pollutants absorbed. They are therefore the most exposed group. But they are also a group with a valuable characteristic: social influence. An athlete who changes their habits does not do so in silence — they inspire teammates, friends and parents. They are a natural multiplier of behaviour.
The #CambiaMOaria2030 project translates this insight into a Sports and Clean Air Decalogue, ten simple and concrete actions:
- Walk or cycle to get to gyms and sports grounds: it’s a natural warm-up and reduces emissions.
- Use public transport: buses and trains take cars off the road and cut down on smog and traffic.
- Organise carpooling with teammates: sharing a car halves or further reduces the impact.
- Avoid short car journeys: a cold engine is the most polluting, and consumes more fuel in the first few kilometres.
- Use a water bottle: fewer plastic bottles, less waste, fewer emissions from production and transport.
- Don’t leave rubbish behind: clean fields and parks improve environmental quality and reduce degradation and microplastics.
- Reduce waste in the changing rooms: short showers, lights off, and less unused hot water reduce energy consumption and indirect pollution.
- Reuse sportswear: fast fashion in sport is highly polluting; buying only when needed and swapping items in good condition is already an act of care.
- Train in green spaces: parks improve local air quality and are ideal for running and athletic training.
- Set a good example: a sports enthusiast influences their team and friends; promoting car-free days and eco-friendly initiatives is already a form of activism.to e iniziative ecologiche è già fare attivismo.
The final slide is succinct: doing sport means breathing more. It is not a warning intended to discourage — it is the reason why the quality of the air we breathe is not an abstract issue, but a personal and urgent one.
An open conclusion looking towards 2030
Fattori’s presentation is not a catalogue of problems: it is a journey of connections. Every aspect of daily life — how we get around, what we eat, what we wear, how we exercise — is intertwined with air quality, the climate, physical health, and the working conditions of those who produce what we consume. Social marketing is the lens through which to view all this not as individual fault but as a systemic opportunity: designing contexts in which the healthiest choice is also the simplest, the most convenient, the most normal.
2030 is not far off. The new European Directive will come into force. Italian cities will have to adapt to stricter limits. The question that remains open — and which the presentation poses — is who will be prepared by that deadline, and who will have been left waiting for someone else to decide for them.
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