A home should be a place of comfort, safety and protection. Unfortunately, for millions of urban families in Bangladesh, the air inside their homes is often more polluted than the air outside. Invisible pollutants released from cooking, gas burners, poor ventilation, damp walls, household chemicals, tobacco smoke and overcrowded living conditions gradually damage health. Since women, infants, young children, pregnant mothers, elderly people and those working from home spend longer hours indoors, they receive the highest exposure and face the greatest health risks.

The scale of the problem is alarming. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), household air pollution causes approximately 3.2 million premature deaths globally every year, including more than 237,000 deaths among children under five. While Bangladesh has made significant progress in replacing biomass fuels with natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in urban households, indoor pollution remains widespread because of poor ventilation, gas leaks, emissions from cooking, damp housing conditions and chemical pollutants found in everyday household products.

Bangladesh is urbanising rapidly. According to the United Nations, more than 76 million people, representing around 43 per cent of the country''s population, now live in urban areas. This proportion is projected to exceed half of the national population within the next two decades. Unfortunately, the quality of urban housing has not kept pace with this rapid growth. Thousands of apartment buildings are constructed with little consideration for natural ventilation, healthy airflow or indoor environmental quality.