The improvements gained by the city and payback time of the SCAF project are not all direct. Because the SCAF is acting on different aspects of air pollution the payback time should reflect this. The positive effects a network would have are not just higher air clarity and lower CO2 and ozone levels, but also better health for the city's population, lower electricity and building maintenance costs, fewer work days lost to illness due to air pollution related health problems, fewer hospitalisations and fewer premature deaths resulting from these problems. The pollution from cities also affects the surrounding countryside so this too should be taken into account.

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If all of the SCAF networks (53 cities) shown in this Google Earth placemark were built and the SCAFs reduced the costs and effects of air pollution by just 0.5%, in Europe it could save:

1555 people a year from dieing prematurely from air pollution related illnesses (if each person died only 5 years before they should with an average income of 2'500 Euros a month and a conservative 10% tax rate, that's almost 23 million Euros a year),
about 12'000 yrs/yr of life lost due to air pollution, (same income and taxes, 36 million Euros a year)
1 billion Euros a year in health care costs,
75 million Euros a year of workforce lost productivity,
5.5 million Euros of lost revenue from harvests and forestry,
1.5 million Euros a year worth of damage to city buildings and monuments,
Produce over 3.7 billion Kwh
saving an estimated 562 million Euros a year in the cities' electricity bills through green energy production,
resulting in 2.4 billion tons a year less CO2 emissions. (0.65 kg CO2 per Kwh)

If a greenhouse SCAF like this one were built and the space, 5891 square metres, rented out to residents at just 3 Euros per m2. This would bring in 212'000 Euros a year. One in each city in this network (53 cities) would make over 11.24 million Euros a year. Locally grown produce also helps to reduce a city's carbon footprint. Depending on the origin, up to approximately 4 tons of CO2 is emitted by transport for every ton of produce imported.

Download this workbook to see the payback as well as pollution, savings and cost calculations.