Exploring the Problem Space of CO2 Emission Reductions from Academic Flying

Abstract

CO2 emissions from aviation have been predicted to increase over the coming decades. Within the academic world, flying is often perceived to be a necessary prerequisite to being a successful researcher. Many Swedish universities have ambitious climate goals, but are simultaneously among the top emitters in the public sector. Reaching stated climate goals could feasibly be met through a combination of measures, including decreased flying. One way to address the challenge is to support behavioural interventions with the help of interactive visualizations of CO2 emissions from flying. Those few examples that exist in the research literature are generally directed towards management and are less applicable to universities, given the large autonomy researchers enjoy and their discretionary control of research project funds. This paper uses a design-oriented research approach to present an analysis of the problem space at the intersection of interactive visualizations using air travel data to reduce CO2 emissions from business air travel at our own university, KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Through a number of design experiments, evaluations and investigations, we have unearthed needs, challenges and opportunities for the creation of visualization tools to support more sustainable travel practices at universities and in other knowledge-intensive organisations.

American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society Annual Meeting All-in-person Attendance Results in Immense Carbon Expenditure

“…For reference, round-trip air travel from Los Angeles, CA, USA, to New York, NY, USA, results in approximately 1.3 tons CO 2 e per passenger, or just over 50% of the annual recommended amount for personal emissions by the year 2030. This has sparked the scientific community to seriously consider its contribution to global warming via attendance at academic and medical conferences [2,28,35,39,40,41,47,51,54]. Although conferences are integral to continuing medical education, and in-person attendance arguably holds unique value for increasing their yield, the cumulative impact of conference travel on climate change may be consequential [30].…”

Unmasking mobility patterns: international travel behavior and emissions of scientists in a higher research institution

“…At the same time, mobility is known to contribute significantly to universities’ GHG emissions (Arsenault et al , 2019; Wynes and Donner, 2018), with air travel being one of the major contributions from scientists to anthropogenic climate change (Levine et al , 2019). Therefore, different universities in the USA (Schmidt, 2022), Australia (Glover et al , 2018) and Europe (Hoolohan et al , 2021; Biørn-Hansen et al , 2021) have already implemented climate policies aiming to reduce GHG emissions from air travel.…”

“…Scientists are part of the small share of the world’s population that is able to take flights. Therein, scientists are found to be among the highest emitters (Le Quéré et al , 2015; Higham et al , 2019), as academic flying is seen as essential for professional success (Wynes et al , 2019; Biørn-Hansen, 2021). Despite mutual perceptions about the relevance of scientific travel, Wynes et al (2019) do not find a statistically significant relationship between air travel emissions and the scientific output of a scientist.…”

Designing Data Interactions for Sustainable Consumption

“…imaginaries and speculations) [11,112,113,114], more-than-human focus on sustainability [33,65,122,134], and exploring new ways of engaging with environmental data (e.g. through narrations [13,89,94], combining data and subjective experiences [22,23,27,64,94], embodiment [11,96], and physicalisation [109,115]). Rossitto et al [106] outline the contemporary focus of SHCI research by stating that there is a need to "[...] move towards an ethics of sustainability that not only engages the moral responsibility to act, but also the value of making meaning (not only finding solutions) in the practices of sustainable living" [106, p. 4].…”

“…Staged interventions include workshops and public installations (see [13,89,91]). For the workshops, the probes were staged for a short period of time, and the context of use was limited.…”