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Much as New York City prides itself on its superlatives, there was no boasting on June 7 when, thanks to Canadian wildfires, the air turned the color of Tang and the city recorded the worst air quality in the world.
So it was fitting that Allegra, the OTC allergy medication, chose New York to introduce Allegra Airways, a mapping tool that enables users to plot walking or biking routes with the best air quality.
Think of it as Waze meets haze. With Allegra Air, users enter a destination, and it plots the route with the best air quality using real-time data about pollution and–achoo!–pollen.
The effort is a partnership with Ambee, a climate and environmental intelligence platform. It launched in a beta version in New York, and is accessible through the Allegra website, with plans to introduce it as a mobile app and expand to more cities in the spring.
Allegra
Nothing to sneeze at: Allegra Airways launched in conjunction with Climate Week, which began on September 17 and is a partnership between the Climate Group and the United Nations General Assembly. Some companies might worry about being shunned for practicing “woke capitalism” by Republican lawmakers for participating in Climate Week. But Sanofi, which makes Allegra, proudly announced in July that it had received B Corp Certification from B Lab, which evaluates companies on what it calls their “entire social and environmental impact.”
Among the efforts that earned the company its certification, as Retail Brew previously reported:
- Eliminating 35 tons of plastic packaging per year by removing plastic windows on Allegra, Nasacort, and other products.
- Relying on only renewable electricity for its North American manufacturing and distribution sites (through the purchase of wind-energy renewable energy credits).
Pedic(oll)ab:
Using the tool, the drivers plotted the best-air-quality routes, giving free rides to Climate Week dignitaries—although let’s not kid ourselves…it’s impossible to look dignified when you’re a pedicab passenger.