Mapping travel emissions in Academia

The members of the group are drawing up a map that collects the emissions and the distances between major European cities and ICTA-UAB to compare air and train travel to conferences or meetings. The map will be available shortly to all members of the ICTA-UAB community.

Additionally, the group is asking for new PhD students to volunteer in a pilot aiming to monitor the carbon footprint of research activities. Do not hesitate to contact the group if you are interested!

Their work is based on the assumption that research activities generate considerable carbon emissions, notably due to air travel. Scientists advocate for a serious reduction of academia’s carbon footprint, and several universities have started to implement institutional measures to reduce research related carbon emissions. Since September 2020, ICTA-UAB Works to achieve three main objectives during the 2020-2021 academic year:

• To sensitize the ICTA-UAB community about the need to reduce the carbon footprint of professional travel.
• To design tools that would allow us to measure and monitor travel related carbon footprint at ICTA-UAB.
• To elaborate guidelines to help members of the ICTA-UAB community to reduce the contribution of their research-related travel to global greenhouse gas emissions.

The group is action-oriented and functions in a decentralized way, with all the members proposing and taking the lead in specific actions, according to their preferences and time availability. Members of the group meet once a month (1 h) to coordinate next steps and actions.

If you are interested in contributing to any of the goals above, please send an email to victoria.reyes@uab.cat