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Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
International meetings offer researchers worldwide the chance to explore the cutting edge of science, generate new ideas, and strike up collaborations. Having a wide geographical distribution of attendees is often regarded as a mark of success. However, researchers at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) are now calling this into question by seeking to quantify the environmental impact of international conference travel. Their results, published in the journal Magnetic Resonance, could help researchers make informed decisions and adopt more climate-conscious mindsets.
Every effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions can help us combat the rampant effects of global warming. While research on sustainability practices is making progress in various aspects of our lives, academic research itself has a considerable environmental footprint that must not be overlooked. In its commitment to sustainable research, the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) actively raises awareness of this topic and seeks effective strategies to mitigate the climate impact of research.
As data is often missing, ISTA Sustainability Manager Jeroen Dobbelaere and professors Paul Schanda and Georgios Katsaros sought to tackle this issue head-on in 2023. They developed a course to quantify the footprint of research practices as part of the ISTA Graduate School curriculum. “Together with the registered students, we sought to tackle one topic a year,” says Dobbelaere. “We designed the course with a focus on mentoring and project-based data analysis culminating with a presentation to the campus community.”
Their results on the carbon footprint of conference travel in the field of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) have now been published in the journal Magnetic Resonance, an interactive open-access publication of the Groupement AMPERE.
Rising post-pandemic emissions
Multiple academic research activities have a high impact on the climate. These include the production of chemicals and other research consumables as well as the construction and maintenance of research buildings, facilities, and equipment. However, other factors such as commuting to work and conference travel weigh in the balance. One of these factors, the carbon footprint of travel in academia, is of particular interest as it has again started rising considerably after the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
“In-person meetings have a quality that online conferences simply cannot provide,” says Schanda. “Many of us had brilliant ideas—or thought so at the time—while having a drink with a colleague after a poster session.” Such unique opportunities can hardly be offered in an online setting. Thus, although online-only conferences have a considerably lower carbon footprint, they do not provide scientists with a comparable experience to in-person meetings.
Accounting for the ‘hidden’ carbon costs
When the course was first offered during the 2023-24 academic year, the team examined the environmental impact of conference travel in the case of NMR. “Considering the substantial carbon footprint of airplane travel, we asked if train travel was an alternative,” says Dobbelaere. According to ISTA PhD graduate Natália Ružičková, one of the course participants and study authors, it is “common knowledge” that trains are less polluting than airplanes. “But there is a ‘but’: these calculations do not include the cost of infrastructure. While a plane only needs two airports, running a train requires tracks, tunnels, and bridges connecting the origin and the destination. And building and maintaining these tracks costs CO2,” she says.
To tackle this issue methodically and account for the ‘hidden’ carbon costs, the course participants made a detailed model that also includes the indirect effects from laying tracks and building train stations. By estimating the ‘real’ CO2 footprint of travel to various European cities from Vienna, the team still confirmed that train travel had a substantially more planet-friendly impact than flights. “We found that while the infrastructure emissions associated with a train journey are around three times as high as the CO2 footprint of actually running the train—meaning the emissions shown by travel apps—, traveling by train still saves on average 85% of CO2 as compared to the same journey by flight,” explains Ružičková. However, this effect was less clear for long trips exceeding 3,000 kilometers.
More CO2 than half a year’s worth of research
Next, the scientists took a closer look at the travel emissions from ten international NMR conferences over the past decade. The researchers showed that traveling to an overseas conference generates a substantial carbon footprint of four to five tons per participant. This is the case, for example, for traveling from Europe to ENC-ISMAR in California. “We compared this data to emissions directly related to research activities in NMR at our institute. It turns out that traveling from Europe to one such overseas conference has a higher carbon footprint than half a year of making samples, running experiments, and scientific computing in NMR at ISTA, combined, per person,” says Schanda. While Austria has a 17% share of fossil fuels, research-related emissions are higher in countries with a more fossil-heavy energy mix, such as Germany, which has more than double Austria’s share.
Climate-conscious conference attendance
By examining additional scenarios, the team made another important finding regarding conference locations. They explored the possibility of decentralized conferences within Europe—that is, meetings held simultaneously at multiple locations and connected virtually. “Such decentralized conferences offer attendees the chance to travel to the conference location closer to their home institution, resulting in carbon savings of up to 25%,” says Dobbelaere.
While the study considered the example of NMR, the authors hope that their results will help researchers make informed, climate-conscious decisions about conference travel in various fields. Next, Dobbelaere, Schanda, and Katsaros will continue their efforts by tackling new topics in their course. “Last year, we addressed the carbon footprint of commuting. In the present academic year, we have started exploring the environmental impact of scientific computing,” says Dobbelaere.
Lucky N. Kapoor, Natália Ružičková, Predrag Živadinović, Valentin Leitner, Maria Anna Sisak, Cecelia Mweka, Jeroen Dobbelaere, Georgios Katsaros, and Paul Schanda. 2025. Quantifying the carbon footprint of conference travel: the case of NMR meetings. Magnetic Resonance. DOI: 10.5194/mr-2025-9
https://doi.org/10.5194/mr-2025-9
Climate Footprint of Conference Travel: Train vs. Plane. ISTA PhD graduate Natália Ružičková present ...
Copyright: © Natália Ružičková | ISTA
CO2 saved by taking the train. Data collected by course participants Natália Ružičková, Valentin Lei ...
Copyright: © Natália Ružičková | ISTA
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