PwC supports “Until the Last Breath” as Film Sponsor to reinforce long-standing commitment to cleaner air and sustainable cities

WARSAW, POLAND, 27 March 2026 — We are proud to support “Until the Last Breath” (“Do ostatniego oddechu”) as a Film Sponsor. Filmed across multiple locations, including Kraków, London, Santiago de Chile, California, and Lahore, the documentary explores the human cost of air pollution through personal stories of people living with smog day to day and grassroot activists working to protect their communities. The film shows how citizens, civic organisations, and in some cases, local authorities, have come together for change, and how similar the concerns can feel across different places, especially when it comes to the health of children and families. It is a reminder that joint efforts can lead to meaningful progress, and that action is needed at every level, from local communities to national governments.

The documentary airs in Poland on TVN24 on Sunday, 29 March at 5pm CET.

Agnieszka Gajewska, CEO-elect and Clients and Markets Leader at PwC CEE, who attended the premiere, said:

In Kraków, sustained public pressure led to a ban on burning coal and wood, which was followed by a marked improvement in air quality. The number of smog days per year reportedly fell by more than 100 — from 127 in 2011 to 23 in 2024. The public health implications of this change are widely discussed: calculations published in The Guardian and cited as coming from the European Clean Air Centre suggest that the reduction in pollution may have helped avoid around 6,000 premature deaths among the city’s residents. Separately, findings from Professor Ewa Czarnobilska’s research team show a direct link between improved air quality — associated with the phase‑out of around 30,000 old stoves and children’s health outcomes, with the share of Kraków children reporting asthma symptoms falling from 22% to 9% over that period.

In the film, Andrzej Guła of Polish Smog Alert says that beating smog is possible, but it requires far greater determination from those in power.

Our sponsorship builds on years of work on clean air and sustainable transformation across Central and Eastern Europe. We’ve combined research, ecosystem-building, education, and collaboration with cities and organisations to facilitate cleaner, more liveable urban environments.

Advancing sustainable urban mobility. Our CEE Smart Cities Mobility Index

How people move through cities has a direct impact on the air they breathe. This connection was important part of our CEE Smart Cities Mobility Index, which we launched in September 2024 at the New Mobility Congress in Łódź. We built it alongside partners including AVERE, the European Association for Electromobility, EIT Urban Mobility, CEE GTI (Central and Eastern Europe Green Transport Initiative), and The New Mobility Association (PSNM) as an honest baseline of smart mobility across 25 CEE cities. It was a starting point for collective action among local authorities, public and private sector organisations and mobility stakeholders.

We’ve since shared our findings at COP29 in Baku and the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona, and the conversations that followed confirmed that cities want to act, and they need support.

Air quality formed part of the Index’s environmental sustainability indicator, and the findings were stark. Only Tallinn met World Health Organisation’s (WHO) air quality safety standards. Over three-quarters of the cities in the Index have air pollution either two to three times or three to five times higher than WHO recommended levels. 

In Poland, air pollution had generally improved year-on-year across the cities we studied (Gdańsk, Katowice, Łódź, Rzeszów, Warsaw, and Wrocław), but they still showed levels two to four times above thresholds.

Educating children and young people for cleaner air. Our “Support for Climate—Business vs Smog” programme

Protecting clean air starts with awareness and understanding, especially among the youngest generations. Since 2018, we have been a co-initiator of the "Support for Climate—Business vs Smog" educational programme, delivered in partnership with civic organisations including Kraków Smog Alert, UNEP/GRID-Warsaw and the ASPIRE Association.

Through free, interactive workshops led by trained employee-volunteers, the programme helps children and young people understand the causes and health effects of smog, the drivers of climate change, and the importance of protecting water resources, as well as the everyday actions that can make a difference.

Over the years, the initiative has shown how cooperation between business, civil society, and local communities can help address air pollution at its roots.

Results across seven editions: 

70,154 children participating

3,134 workshops conducted

217 towns reached

The programme won the TOP CSR Initiative in Poland award (2019) and the Benefactor of the Year 2020 title in the Ecology category. 

Backing climate and sustainability innovation. Our partnership with Wolves Summit

Improving air quality also depends on accelerating innovation in clean energy, mobility and climate technologies. Together with Wolves Summit, we worked to help connect climate tech start-ups in Central and Eastern Europe with global impact investors and organised a dedicated climate tech pitching track. We also published the CEE Edition of the Net Zero Future50 report in 2022, which provided an investment landscape analysis in the region and highlighted 50 climate tech innovators. 

The research showed strong growth in climate tech investment, from US$10.6m in 2013 to US$398m in 2020 and over US$502m in the first half of 2021 alone. It also exposed a persistent funding gap. The CEE region contributed approximately 3.73% of global GHG emissions but attracted only 0.79% of global climate tech investment between 2013 and H1 2021.

The 50 start-ups we featured spanned sectors from built environment and energy to mobility, food and agriculture, and greenhouse gases capture and more. These were the kinds of businesses that could accelerate decarbonisation across the region, but they needed visibility and a faster link between ideas and capital. 

About PwC

At PwC, we help clients build trust and reinvent so they can turn complexity into competitive advantage. We’re a tech-forward, people-empowered network with more than 364,000 people in 136 countries and 137 territories. Across audit and assurance, tax and legal, deals and consulting, we help clients build, accelerate, and sustain momentum. Find out more at www.pwc.com. 

About PwC Central and Eastern Europe

PwC Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is part of the PwC global network of firms. PwC CEE is a Strategy Council Territory within the network, influencing strategic direction and facilitating alignment for the execution of strategy. In CEE, we operate as one partnership across 27 countries, bringing together the diverse talents of our region to serve our clients and contribute to our sustainable future development. Learn more at https://cee.pwc.com.  

About PwC Poland

At PwC, we help clients build trust and reinvent so they can turn complexity into competitive advantage. We’re a tech-forward, people-empowered network with more than 364,000 people in 136 countries and 137 territories. Across audit and assurance, tax and legal, deals and consulting we help clients build, accelerate and sustain momentum. In Poland PwC has offices in 7 cities and a Financial Crime Unit in Gdańsk and Warsaw, two Shared Services Centres in Katowice and Opole and a branch of PwC IT Services in Lublin. Polish PwC companies employ over 7000 people, including nearly 2000 in technology teams.