In 2020, Icon Strategies consultants prepared, in cooperation with the team of Saint-Gobain Group, the concept of campaign “In pursuit of silence”, which aimed to draw attention to the problem of noise in Poland, as well as Saint-Gobain solutions to reduce the negative effects of noise on our lives.

As a part of the campaign, the study “Poland in decibels”, a report on acoustic condition in the biggest Polish agglomerations, was prepared.

The report was divided into several categories. In relation to the largest Polish agglomerations, noise level was examined in the centres, housing estates and main streets. It also took into account the places we often visit, both those which are noisy by nature, such as shopping malls, and those to which we flee in search of peace and quiet. The report calls them places of rest. The authors of the study also visited cultural institutions and tried to identify sound icons for each agglomeration, such as the noise in Krakow’s Sukiennice.

The authors of the report compared the obtained results with noise levels in everyday situations. The most worrying of them concerns the noise level in schools. It turned out that the sound level in a school canteen, where 100 children eat lunch at the same time, in a school corridor during a break or during a PE lesson is not much different from the one we can experience in a Warsaw metro station when a train enters the platform (about 80 dB). Similar results were obtained by opening a car window on a motorway at the speed of 140 km/h.

The study has been made available to architects, investors and interior designers, as well as directors of public and commercial facilities. It is also available to those planning to build a house or buy a flat. The report can be downloaded at www.polskawdecybelach.pl. The Comfort of Silence association was a partner of the study.