Good practices

The good practices

Be inspired by initiatives, thoughts and experiences of other people from the ExPlane network!

Soeren from LOCEAN, Sorbonne University

During Soeren Thomsen’s visit at Université Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD) in Dakar, Senegal in mid 2018, he and his Senegalese colleagues investigated climate change impacts on the West African coastal ocean. Soeren tells us about the insights he had about pushing for more inclusivity in the academic world while cutting carbon emissions. 

During Soeren’s visit, the team did not only work on the research, they also had long discussions on how difficult it is for the growing African scientific community to join the international debate. Together with colleagues from around the world, Soeren and his colleagues decided to work on concrete solutions to set the path for inclusive, just, and sustainable international collaborations.

Soeren explains: “The international scientific knowledge exchange system is simply too slow and too broken to offer solutions at the required speed and scale so that everyone can participate.” In his opinion, virtual communication is key to making the scientific community more inclusive.

“In 2020 when virtual communication became the norm, this was unfortunately not in response to long lasting issues like inclusion, justice, or the massive CO2 emissions from to fly-in events, but due to the deadly coronavirus,” Soeren says. “This is a sad but important fact. After this crisis is over, we need to ensure that the scientific community doesn’t simply go back to “normal”. Structural change is needed; implementing strict new travel policies within universities can play a key role.”

Abi from Edinburgh University

When PhD-student Abi Whitefield was a MSc student in Environmental Protection and Management at Edinburgh, she decided to not participate in a compulsory course field trip due to its carbon emissions. This decision did not only send a clear message to her teachers and peers, it also benefitted her: she got to design her own research project instead.

Abi knew a field tour to Morocco was a compulsory component of the degree when she applied for the MSc course in Environmental Protection and Management. She didn’t want to go. Not only due to a slight fear of flying, but due to the immense environmental impact of the journey there. Luckily, her course director was completely supportive of her decision: “They started planning alternative activities for me.”

It’s somewhat ironic that a university school that focuses on climate change and the impacts of excessive carbon release causes a large carbon footprint through compulsory field trips.

Abi knew a field tour to Morocco was a compulsory component of the degree when she applied for the MSc course in Environmental Protection and Management. She didn’t want to go. Not only due to a slight fear of flying, but due to the immense environmental impact of the journey there. Luckily, her course director was completely supportive of her decision: “They started planning alternative activities for me.”

“It’s somewhat ironic that a university school that focuses on climate change and the impacts of excessive carbon release causes a large carbon footprint through compulsory field trips,” says Abi. “I think my refusal has made both the course director and the School of GeoSciences more aware that they need to offer less carbon-intensive options for students.”

Groene Locomotief from Ghent University

The group of students called Groene Locomotief (Green Locomotive) at Ghent University offered the university a set of ideas to make their travel policy greener. This eventually resulted in a new travel policy.

Through discussion nights and an awareness campaign, the Groene Locomotief managed to convince Ghent University to rethink the way they travel and facilitate travel. The group of students came with a set of ideas which they offered to the university.

It was important for them to prove that an internationalisation strategy can be combined with lowering carbon emissions from travel. Among the ideas in their proposal was the simple solution to only reimburse travel by train or bus if the trip by train or bus is 6 hours or shorter.

Ghent University was one of the first universities to implement a more sustainable travel policy: take a look at an overview of all measures here.

Christoph from ETH Zürich

Christoph Küffer is a senior researcher at the Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH Zürich, and professor for urban ecology at the University of Applied Sciences Rapperswil. He is now into his fifth year of (almost) not flying. This is what he learnt.

This blog post is based on his publications at ETH Zukunftsblog and Stay Grounded

As an ecologist I have the choice between flying to conference rooms where I discuss how to better analyse more data that shows ever more dramatically how badly affected our ecosystems are, or I can work together with social scientists, artists, urban planners, and practitioners at home to innovate carbon-free cities.

Erasmus by Train

Aiming to link the Erasmus and Interrail programmes for a more sustainable and united Europe, the student-led initiative Erasmus by Train was founded in January 2020.

Ever since, they have been actively trying to raise public awareness of these two European youth programmes and promote the idea of thinking of them collectively. To Erasmus by Train, it seems contradictory that the EU, which sees itself as a sustainable player, indirectly supports air travel; central organisations close to Erasmus, such as ESN, cooperate closely with airlines like Ryanair.

Participants therefore often prefer to travel by air because of low prices and discounts. As a result, the Erasmus programme continuously contributes to the EU’s high CO2 emissions, which runs counter to its obligations under the Paris Convention and its own sustainability efforts.

Erasmus by Train calls on the relevant EU institutions to cover the travel costs of all Erasmus participants who renounce climate-damaging air travel and switch to environmentally friendly means of transport such as rail. Specifically, they are campaigning for free Interrail passes for travel to and from the exchange location!

Find out more by visiting erasmusbytrain.eu

Daantje from Utrecht University

Utrecht University aims to be CO₂-neutral by 2030 and wishes to reduce air travel by 50 percent in 2030 (compared to 2019). A large part of the UU’s carbon footprint is caused by study-related trips. The UU, therefore, encourages students to travel to their European exchange destination by bus or train. To better facilitate students who want to travel overland, the university came up with a project to reimburse travel costs: the Travel Green Grant. We spoke to Daantje Berghuis of Green Office Utrecht, who is one of the initiators of the project. 

I hope that the UU will keep on supporting students in the future, and of course it would be amazing if other universities will copy the project.

Jelle from Maastricht University

As part of the Green Impact challenge Jelle Kouwenhoven took on the challenge to address the flying behaviour of Maastricht University: in a team he worked on a proposal to change the travel culture and policy of the university. Their hard work was successful: they won the challenge! The project has now been handed over to the UM sustainability team for implementation.We spoke to Jelle Kouwenhoven, who was part of the team.

It contributes to a new academic culture, in which long distance business travel is not viewed as imperative for a successful international network and academic career.

LUCSUS, Lund University

In 2018, the Centre for Sustainable Studies at Lund University (LUCSUS) adopted a travel policy in which it committed to serious and significant efforts to reduce work-related emissions.

LUCSUS is a leading center for sustainability research and teaching. It’s diverse engagements take students and staff all across the globe, which comes at the cost of a large environmental footprint. In December 2018, LUCSUS adopted a travel policy aimed at facilitating serious and significant efforts to reduce work-related emissions from travel.

After an initial 1-year commitment period, the current challenge is to raise ambition, gain wider participation and set more concrete reduction targets for the future.

How did it start?

The idea for a travel policy first came up in informal discussions among LUCSUS staff, who began to question their frequent travels for field work, study trips or conferences. Henner Busch, one of the initiators of the process, recalls that “it all started with individual researchers adopting their own approach, deciding to take the train instead of the plane”. These actions paved the way for the later adoption of the travel policy.

The Travel Better Package

Are you looking for more resources? The Travel Better Package might be something to check out. The package was created by the Alliance for Sustainability Leadership in Education (EAUC) and aims to support the reduction of air travel in the further and higher education (FHE) sector, specifically amongst academics and staff.

It not only aims to support reflection on and reconfiguration of the sector’s relationship to air travel on an institutional and individual basis, it also hopes to encourage individuals to travel better. Moreover, the package is concerned with improving equity and diversity while reducing air travel in the sector and offers support in doing this.

The Travel Better Package includes:

  • A Questions & Answer tool addressing concerns individuals may have about reducing air travel
  • The Travel Better Pledge Template used to inform individual behaviour change, as well as departmental and/or institutional policies, pledges and statements
  • The Air Travel Justification Tool, which is an extension of a decision tree – the tool supports individuals in justifying/reflecting on attending a conference, meeting and/or event that is only accessible through flying

Take a look at the package here.

ETH Zürich

ETH Zürich has announced to take steps to reduce their emissions by addressing their travel policy as well as travel culture. The Swiss university has committed to a reduction of 11% of their flight emissions from 2019 to 2025.

This cut in emissions is based on the effective reduction of flight emissions by ETH members. This means it does not include compensation or the efficiency gains of the airlines due to technological progress.

Concrete measures to reduce air travel range from awareness raising, expansion of videoconferencing through trainings and infrastructure improvements, sustainable travel planning (e.g. bundling travels and preference of train rides over flights for journeys less than 8 hours) and new monitoring and evaluation system of flight emissions.

Find more information on the website of Stay Grounded.

Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research

The Tyndall Travel Strategy includes a voluntary code of conduct and a system to monitor and justify travel emissions. It also supports individual commitments to reducing emissions. To justify travels made, staff can use a decision tree: check it out.

This is the code of conduct to support a low-carbon research culture that is being used:

  • Monitor and reduce: I will keep track of the carbon emissions of my professional activities, and set personal objectives to reduce them in line with or larger than my country’s carbon emissions commitments (see ’Set your targets below).
  • Account and justify: I will justify my travel considering the location and purpose of the event, my level of seniority, and the alternative options available.
  • Prioritise, prepare and replace: For activities that I organise, I will chose the location giving high priority to a low carbon footprint of travel of the participants, and I will encourage, incorporate and technically support online speakers and webcasts to reduce unnecessary travel.
  • Encourage and stimulate: I will resist my own FoMo (Fear of Missing Out) from not attending everything and work towards sensitizing others to the need of the research community to walk the talk on climate change.
  • Reward: I will work with my peers, Institute and Funders to value alternative metrics of success and encourage the promotion of low-carbon research as a realisable alternative to a high-carbon research career.

An overview of all measures can be found here.