Update Letters
Climate-neutral ecology conferences: just do it! Oliver Bossdorf, Madalin Parepa and Markus Fischer Institute of Plant Sciences and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Altenbergrain 21, CH-3013 Bern, Switzerland
Conferences are important. They allow researchers to learn about the latest research, to present and defend their own work, and, most importantly, they provide ample opportunities for networking. However, scientific conferences have come under attack for their climate impact, in particular for the CO2 emissions caused by air travel [1]. The situation is particularly ironic for climate researchers and ecologists who speak out against CO2 emissions and yet have a considerably larger than average carbon footprint [2–4]. As a result, more scientists are demanding that the number of scientific meetings be drastically reduced [1,4–5], or that meetings should become partly or entirely virtual [6]. We agree that excessive CO2 emissions caused by scientists are a serious issue, both in the impact of the emissions themselves and as a terrible signal to the public. Therefore, we advocate combining several measures to: (1) reduce the number of scientific conferences to only the essential ones, (2) organise conferences as environmentally-friendly as possible, and (3) compensate for the remaining CO2 emissions through investment into carbon offset projects that reduce emissions elsewhere, e.g. through implementation of renewable energy technologies. Recently we hosted a medium-sized three-day ecology conference (www.popbio2009.unibe.ch) with 125 participants from 14 countries. To make the conference ‘‘greener,’’ we chose local food for catering, avoided disposable tableware, and printed materials on environmentally-friendly paper. We inquired regarding each conference participant’s means of transportation and entered all conference details into the CO2 calculator for events provided by http://www.myclimate.org, which estimated the total emissions caused by our conference as 11.5 tons of CO2. Sixtysix percent of these emissions were due to travelling, whereas food and accommodation accounted for 18% and 13%, respectively, and the remaining 3% were due to printed material and waste. To bring the carbon balance of our meeting back to zero, we invested 280 s into carbon offset projects. In summary, with moderate effort and extra costs of only few s per participant, our meeting became climateneutral. Of course, a European conference such as ours may cause comparably low emissions because few participants travel by air. Still, even if emissions of conferences of intercontinental character are an order of magnitude larger, it remains surprisingly inexpensive to make them climate-neutral, and we suggest this should become common practice for ecology conferences worldwide. Despite some movement to make ecology conferences more environmentally-friendly (e.g. the recent ESA meetings), many conferences still make no such efforts. Even less Corresponding author: Bossdorf, O. (
[email protected]).
attention is paid to making conferences climate-neutral. A few societies have begun to include small ‘‘carbon fees’’ in their registration costs, but we are aware of only one major ecology conference, the 2009 meeting of the Society for Ecological Restoration, where a full compensation of the CO2 emissions is planned. We propose that it is timely and highly appropriate for major ecological societies, as well as for smaller organizers, to take measures for making their conferences as environmentally-friendly as possible, including compensation for CO2 emissions. How is this best accomplished? Ecologists planning a climate-neutral conference should be aware that most CO2 emissions are caused by air travel (1000 km flight: ca. 230 kg CO2 emissions = 8 s compensation payment; 1000 km train ride: 11 kg CO2 = 0.4 s) and by excessive heating or air conditioning. Thus, the timing and location of a conference matter. Holding a conference close to the ‘‘centre of gravity’’ of the participants’ origins and during the season when the least heating or air conditioning is required will minimize flight mileages and energy use, and therefore extra costs for carbon offsetting. It is also important to choose an appropriate carbon-offset provider. At first glance the diversity of providers differing in focus, transparency and quality standards may appear bewildering. However, critical directories such as those listed on http://www.co2offsetresearch.org/ facilitate simple selection of high-quality offset providers. While CO2 emissions are a serious issue, and making conferences climate-neutral is a big step forward, we should not forget that climate change constitutes only a part of the problem. Conferences, as with any human activity, have a water and biodiversity footprint as well [7–8], and therefore the long-term goal should be to compensate for the total environmental footprint of our activities. For the time being, measures for achieving climate-neutral conferences are available and they are very simple, just take them. References 1 Green, M. (2008) Are international medical conferences an outdated luxury the planet can’t afford? Yes. Brit. Med. J. 336, 1466 2 Michaelowa, A. and Lehmkuhl, A. (2005) Greenhouse gas emissions caused by the international climate negotiations. Clim. Pol. 4, 337–340 3 Gre´millet, D. (2008) Paradox of flying to meetings to protect the environment. Nature 455, 1175 4 Fox, H.E. et al. (2009) Why do we fly? Ecologists sins of emission. Front. Ecol. Environ. 7, 294–296 5 Anonymous (2008) Meeting expectations. Nature 455, 836 6 Reay, D.S. (2003) Virtual solution to carbon cost of conferences Improved technology is making virtual meetings more like real ones, without the flights. Nature 424, 251 7 Butler, S.J. et al. (2007) Farmland biodiversity and the footprint of agriculture. Science 315, 381–384 8 Gerbens-Leenes, W. et al. (2009) The water footprint of bioenergy. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 106, 10219–10223 0169-5347/$ – see front matter ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tree.2009.09.006 Available online 7 October 2009
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