Flying Less for Work and Leisure? Co-Designing a City-Wide Change Initiative in Geneva

Abstract

Geneva prides itself on being an international city, home to the United Nations and international organizations. The airport plays an important role in this image, tied to a quest for hypermobility in an increasingly globalized society. Yet, mobility accounts for close to one quarter of the territory’s carbon emissions, with flights responsible for 70% of these emissions. With recent legislation that includes ambitious targets for net zero carbon emissions by 2050, the role of air travel can no longer be ignored. In 2020, a partnership was formed between the City, the University of Geneva, and a community energy association to explore the possibility of co-designing a city-wide change initiative, focused on reducing flights through voluntary measures. The team consulted with a variety of actors, from citizens who fly for leisure, to those who fly for professional reasons, with a spotlight on academic travel. A review of the scientific and grey literature revealed what initiatives already exist, leading to a typology of change initiatives. Inspired by this process, we then co-designed a series of workshops on opportunities for flying less in Geneva. We demonstrate the value of going beyond an ‘individual behaviour change’ approach towards understanding change as embedded in socio-material arrangements, as well as identifying interventions that seek to address both negative and positive anticipated outcomes. We conclude with insights on how a social practice approach to understanding mobility reveals both material and immaterial challenges and opportunities, involving infrastructures and technologies, but also social norms and shared meanings.

Environmental perceptions of global business travel by Swiss companies in the Zurich airport region

“…The component questions behind this have value alone, too, and are used where appropriate. Ha (1), "as environmental awareness (from the corporate) increases, business travel decreases" This was not proven from the data collected. There was no significant difference between business travel and willingness to pay corporate taxation.…”

“…That reluctance to consider reducing mobility applies particularly strongly to travel for business, aside from a few scholars including the group who conducted an exploratory study which suggests, among other things, that people consider their professional travel more urgent and valued than their leisure travel (Gössling et al, 2019). That argument has been made elsewhere, particularly in studies involving academics themselves (Sahakian et al, 2021). Even among climate change researchers regular international travel is both a norm and considered more important than leisure travel (Whitmarsh et al, 2020).…”

The Catalogue of Leisure Activities: A New Structured Values and Content Based Instrument for Leisure Research Usable for Social Development and Community Planning

“…Given the irreplaceable role of leisure activities in the prevention of risky behavior [105,106], in the field of social inclusion [107], in the field of social development [108], and in the prevention of pathological phenomena in the family [109], the CaLA can also be used as an auxiliary tool to map current leisure experiences and to plan its short-and long-term support. In doing so, the impact on the environment, travel and tourism and its sustainability will also play an important role [10,11]. Policy planning can also take advantage of the demonstrable link of leisure activities to value preferences and also support the social development of communities, municipalities and society through the promotion of prosocial values.…”

“…The use of the CaLA can also have further impact in the field of ecology and carbon footprint mapping, as many leisure activities (travel, gastronomy, motor sports, etc.) have a considerable impact on the environment [10][11][12].…”

Environmental perceptions of global business travel by Swiss companies in the Zurich airport region

“…Particularly relevant are the works by Stefan Gösling, Scott Cohen and James Higham. Additionally, Sahakian et al (2021) 1 have recently published an article on air travel in (Genève) Switzerland based on document analysis and the analysis of workshop data.…”