How are we keeping COP26 safe?
COP26 is the world’s best, last chance to bring climate change under control. With 25,000 delegates and global leaders scheduled to gather in Glasgow, Scotland, we developed our largest-ever hygiene plan to protect everyone at the conference.
Our team has spent 9 months working with the UK Cabinet Office and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and Arctech Innovation to identify high-traffic, high-touch areas across the conference. This work has helped us to develop and implement a range of hygiene measures and protocols:
Protection from illness-causing germs
- Splitting the two main event areas into 12 separate sections, spanning every type of conference space, including entrances and exits, meeting rooms, exhibition areas, bathrooms, front of house and crew spaces.
- Developing bespoke hygiene interventions for high-touch surfaces like railings, elevator buttons, electronic equipment, phones, door handles and catering spaces.
- Providing guidance on how, when and with which products areas should be cleaned and disinfected.
- Providing Dettol Liquid Hand Wash, Dettol Hand Sanitiser Gel and Dettol Multi-Purpose Cleaner Spray - all of which are proven to inactivate SARS-CoV-2.
Monitoring hygiene protocols
- Deploying 3 environmental health officers (EHOs) to quantitatively check hygiene levels through ATP testing, so we can refine the protocols in real-time.
- Carrying out 4,800 ATP swab tests on high-touch points, to ensure that our COP26 hygiene protocols are working.
Behaviour change
- Providing each delegate with a Hygiene Kit that includes a face covering, a pack of biodegradable disinfectant wipes and a hand sanitiser, which can be refilled at the Hygiene Service Counter.
- Installing 600 hand sanitising stations, including Wi-Fi-enabled smart stations that monitor their usage and trigger an alert when they need to be refilled
The numbers
25,000
delegates and official negotiators
30
football pitches of space
600
hand sanitising stations
1,000
hours of technical support to develop protocols
3
environmental health officers (EHOs)
4,800
ATP swab tests conducted during the event
Dr. Lisa Ackerley, Director of Medical and Scientific Engagement, Hygiene at Reckitt
"As the official hygiene partner for COP26, Reckitt is lending an unrivalled level of scientific and medical expertise to develop and implement hygiene protocols designed around efficacy and sustainability. Our multifunctional team rose to the challenge to deliver thousands of germ-killing interventions every hour across the 12 zones throughout the conference."