This case study explores how two South African civil society organisations (CSOs) have used scientific evidence to influence air pollution management in one of the country's pollution hot-spots, the South Durban industrial basin. In 2000, the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) in collaboration with a national environmental CSO, groundWork, launched an air monitoring project for South Durban. Their findings, which revealed high levels of benzene and 18 other pollutants in the air, triggered the establishment of South Africa's first local air quality management programme, the South Durban Multi-Point Plan (MMP).