Emission reduction potentials for academic conference travel

Abstract

Air travel, including academic conference travel, is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions and must be limited to achieve climate change targets. To model reduction potentials, we analyzed travel emissions for three global conferences of the International Society for Industrial Ecology. Travel emissions were 722–955 t CO2e per conference and averaged 1.3–1.8 t CO2e per attendee. A shift to land transport for short flights has a maximum reduction potential of only 5% because long‐haul flights contribute most of the emissions. A carbon tax of 100$/t CO2e could reduce emissions by 4–14% but students face the largest relative increase in the cost of conference attendance. Having the 10% of attendees who travel furthest attend virtually reduces conference travel emissions by 20–30%. A multi‐site conference with two video‐linked locations yields a reduction of 25–50%; a three‐site conference yields a reduction of 46–75% and combined with a shift to land transport a reduction of up to 82%. A virtual conference would yield zero travel emissions. We conclude that the effectiveness of the reduction options mostly depends on how international the conference is and whether the longest flights are eliminated. We call on conference organizers, universities, academic societies, and funders to further develop, support, and implement multi‐site and virtual conference models. This article met the requirements for a gold–silver JIE data openness badge described in http://jie.click/badges

The Multi-hub Academic Conference: Global, Inclusive, Culturally Diverse, Creative, Sustainable

“…Academics' networking, outreach, and trained ability to understand and explain complex issues allow them to relatively easily change their travel behaviors and in so doing to inspire others to follow their lead (cf. Anderson, 2013;Waring et al, 2014;Fraser et al, 2017;Glover et al, 2018;Grant, 2018;Middleton, 2019;Middleton, 2021;Quinton, 2020;van Ewijk and Hoekman, 2020;Levitis et al, 2021).…”

The uneven distribution of fees for virtual academic conferences

“…Another is that they can help to overcome many access barriers that surround traditional conferences (Bottanelli et al, 2020;Niner & Wassermann, 2021). Enabling an extended reach of participants and accessibility are of primary importance in virtual events, something that benefits both attendees from developing countries and early career researchers (Dolasinski et al, 2021;Fraser et al, 2017;Sarabipour et al, 2021;van Ewijk & Hoekman, 2021).…”

“…Organizers of virtual conferences do not need to look for venues with sustainable practices (Draper, Dawson, & Casey, 2011). A virtual international conference reduces the number of air travels to zero when the organizer as well as participants can attend from in principle any number of locations (van Ewijk & Hoekman, 2021). Multi-site or virtual conferences are also likely to be more inclusive, as travel and attendance costs can be significantly lower, something that allows otherwise under-represented audiences to take part such as researchers from developing countries (Fraser, Soanes, Jones, Jones, & Malishev, 2017;van Ewijk & Hoekman, 2021).…”

Case study on the environmental impact and efficiency of travel

“…Universities [6][7][8] are as well concerned by the impact of their business traveling and the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) has recently introduced an internal tax [9] on air travel motivated by a desire to reduce the carbon dioxide footprint from air travel. On the other hand, other means of transportation are currently not considered for this type of internal tax.…”