Estimating greenhouse gas emissions from travel – a GIS-based study

Abstract

Abstract. Conferences, meetings and congresses are an important part of today's economic and scientific world. But the environmental impact, especially from greenhouse gas emissions associated with travel, can be extensive. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions account for the warming of the atmosphere and oceans. This study draws on the need to quantify and reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with travel activities and aims to give suggestions for organizers and participants on possible ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, demonstrated on the example of the European Geography Association (EGEA) Annual Congress 2013 in Wasilkow, Poland.The lack of a comprehensive methodology for the estimation of greenhouse gas emissions from travel led to an outline of a methodology that uses geographic information systems (GIS) to calculate travel distances. The calculation of travel distances in GIS is adapted from actual transportation infrastructure, derived from the opensource platform OpenStreetMap. The methodology also aims to assess the possibilities to reduce GHG emissions by choosing different means of transportation and a more central conference location.The results of the participants of the EGEA congress, who shared their travel data for this study, show that the total travel distance adds up to 238 000 km, with average travel distance of 2429 km per participant. The travel activities of the participants in the study result in total GHG emissions of 39 300 kg CO 2 -eq including both outward and return trip. On average a participant caused GHG emissions of 401 kg CO 2 -eq. In addition, the analysis of the travel data showed differences in travel behaviour depending on the distance between conference site and point of origin. The findings on travel behaviour have then been used to give an estimation of total greenhouse gas emissions from travel for all participants of the conference, which result in a total amount of 79 711 kg CO 2 -eq.The potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by substituting short flights with train rides and car rides with bus and train rides is limited. Only 6 % of greenhouse gas emissions could be saved by applying these measures. Further considerable savings could only be made by substituting longer flights (32.6 %) or choosing a more central conference location (26.3 %).

Emission reduction potentials for academic conference travel

“…Studies that quantify conference travel emission reduction options focus most often on optimization of a single conference location (Astudillo & AzariJafari, 2018; Desiere, 2016; Fois, Cuena‐Lombraña, Fristoe, Fenu, & Bacchetta, 2016; Kuonen, 2015; Stroud & Feeley, 2015), followed by a shift to land transport (Desiere, 2016; Fois et al., 2016; Kuonen, 2015; Neugebauer, Bolz, Mankaa, & Traverso, 2020), multi‐site conferencing (Coroama, Hilty, & Birtel, 2012; Hischier & Hilty, 2002; Orsi, 2012; Parncutt, Meyer‐Kahlen, & Sattmann, 2019), and excluding long‐distance flyers (Desiere, 2016) (an overview is provided in Table S2‐1 in Supporting Information S2). Hischier and Hilty (2002) assessed a fully virtual conference, which is generally assumed to require a negligible amount of travel.…”

WE have to change! The carbon footprint of ECPR general conferences and ways to reduce it

“…As a starting point, ECPR could conduct a survey among the participants of General Conferences asking them about their actual traveling patterns, their routes and their chosen means of transportation (cp. Kuonen, 2015). Knowing more exactly how attendees travel to the General Conference would help to render carbon footprint estimations (as the ones in this paper) more precise and would also show which factors are causal for the choice of a specific low or high emission means of transportation.…”

“…The basic methodological approach I use to estimate the carbon footprint (cf) of travelling to conferences is simple and has also been applied in earlier studies (Desiere, 2016;Kuonen, 2015): I multiply two times the distance d a participant has to travel from his or her home institution to the conference location (= return trip) with the average greenhouse gas emissions a certain means of transportation has per km (= emission factor e). I distinguish between three modes of transport: by airplane, by bus and by train.…”

“…They criticize not only the very high GHG emissions of scientists (compared to average citizens) which first and foremost follow from their frequent work-induced flights, even if they otherwise lead low carbon lives (Fox et al, 2009;Grémillet, 2008) but also the fact that a high carbon footprint from flying to conferences significantly reduces climate researchers perceived credibility among the general audience (Attari, Krantz, & Weber, 2016). A small number of studies also tried to estimate the carbon footprint of scientific conferences in total (Desiere, 2016;Kuonen, 2015), per attendee, or the average emissions for presenting a single scientific paper (Spinellis & Louridas, 2013). Given the seriousness of the climate crisis, it is however astonishing that the number of these works is still very limited and that they are restricted to a small subset of disciplines from the natural sciences (particularly ecological climatology and environmental studies).…”

Introduction to the special issue of Geographica Helvetica: "Mapping, measuring and modeling in geomorphology"

“…Finally, and in contrast to the studies described above, the last two papers deviate from geomorphology per se and instead report on work undertaken within adjacent research specialisms; namely sustainability and geochemistry. In the former of those two communications, Kuonen (2015) combines the use of an open source data platform with a GIS to present an easy-to-use interface capable of calculating carbon emissions during journeys made by commonly used modes of travel. This not only allows individuals to choose less polluting modes of transport, but it could also provide organisers of, for instance, conferences, meetings and corporate group events, with the tools to identify an optimum centralized setting relative to attendees' original start points.…”