Elsevier

Ecological Indicators

Volume 34, November 2013, Pages 352-355
Ecological Indicators

Short communication
Carbon footprint of science: More than flying

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2013.05.025Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The carbon footprint of a complete science making process is evaluated.

  • The case PhD project had a carbon footprint of 21.2 t CO2-eq of which general mobility represents 75%.

  • Conference attendance represents 35%, and infrastructure 20% of the carbon footprint.

  • Video conferencing could have reduced the carbon footprint with up to 44%.

  • Using green electricity, reduction of energy consumption and promoting commuting by bicycle, could have reduced the carbon footprint with up to 14%.

Abstract

Previous efforts to evaluate the climate change impact of researchers have focused mainly on transport related impact of conference attendance, and infrastructure. Because these represent only a part of the activities involved in the science making process this short note presents the carbon footprint of a complete science making process of one specific case. Apart from presenting the total footprint, we evaluate the relative contribution of the different scientific activities, and quantify mitigating possibilities. The case PhD project had a carbon footprint of 21.5 t CO2-eq (2.69 t CO2-eq per peer-reviewed paper, 0.3 t CO2-eq per citation and 5.4 t CO2-eq per h-index unit at graduation) of which general mobility represents 75%. Conference attendance was responsible for 35% of the carbon footprint, whereas infrastructure related emissions showed to contribute 20% of the total impact. Videoconferencing could have reduced the climate change impact on this case PhD with up to 44%. Other emission reduction initiatives, such as using green electricity, reduction of energy consumption, and promoting commuting by bicycle, could have triggered a reduction of 14% in this case study. This note fits in the movement of academics and universities willing to be green. The study confirms that researchers’ mobility is the biggest contributor to his or her carbon footprint, but is not limited to conference attendance, showing the importance of considering all activities in the science making process.

Introduction

The environmental impact of frequent traveling by scientists has been recurrently criticized. For those occupied with ecology, environment and climate change the irony of the traveling behavior is often emphasized (Burke, 2010, Reay, 2003, Fox et al., 2009). Because individual mobility is highlighted as a significant contributor to climate change (Althaus, 2012) and the major part of the environmental impact of conferences is due to travel of participants (Bossdorf et al., 2010), flying to meetings to protect the environment sounds paradoxical indeed (Gremillet, 2008).

Conference attendance is only one of the activities that researchers perform. Office use and experiments require inputs such has heating, electricity, infrastructure and equipment which may trigger significant environmental impacts as well (Parsons, 2009). In fact, universities tend to take action to reduce their environmental impacts. Realizing the competitive advantage of carbon management they focus on their infrastructure to achieve campus-based emission reduction (Mascarelli, 2009).

In this short note we aim to present the carbon footprint of a complete science making process of one specific case, including experiments, desktop work and travel for field work, meetings and conferences, rather than limiting the discussion to the infrastructure and conference attendance of the researchers. Such impact assessment of a science-making process could (i) indicate what the total impact of scientific achievements is, (ii) evaluate the relative contribution of the different scientific activities, and (iii) identify and quantify mitigating possibilities.

Section snippets

Objective

As a case we quantify the total life cycle carbon footprint of the scientific activities (desktop work, fieldwork, meetings, and conferences) leading to a specific scientist's contribution: a PhD thesis. We evaluate the absolute and relative impact on climate change of the scientist's mobility, and the different reasons, as part of these activities.

Despite uncertainties regarding the potential greenhouse gas (GHG) emission savings of teleconferencing (Kitou and Horvath, 2008, Baliga et al., 2009

Materials and methods

The life-cycle assessment (LCA) procedure was used to evaluate the climate change impacts (carbon footprint in t CO2-eq emissions) of all inputs involved in the production of the PhD thesis. The footprint was calculated according to the official ISO guidelines (ISO, 2006).

As a specific scientist's contribution case we chose a complete PhD project in Environmental Sciences at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium. Being clearly delimited in time and related to the work of mainly one

Results and discussion

The case PhD project had a carbon footprint of 21.5 t CO2-eq (2.69 t CO2-eq per peer-reviewed paper, 0.3 t CO2-eq per citation and 5.4 t CO2-eq per h-index unit at graduation) (Fig. 1). The annual emission of 5.4 t CO2-eq by the work of this Belgian PhD candidate represents 32% of the total annual footprint of an average Belgian citizen (Hertwich and Peters, 2009).

74% of the climate change impact (15.9 t CO2-eq) is caused by mobility (mainly air travel, 95%). Office, internet and computer use

Conclusion

The case study shows that frequent traveling triggers a considerable impact. Conference attendance is responsible for 35% of the carbon footprint, whereas infrastructure related emissions showed to contribute 20% of the total impact. Further it is shown that videoconferencing could indeed significantly reduce the emissions. Other mitigation initiatives such as using green electricity, reduction of energy consumption and promoting commuting by bicycle, could trigger, for this case, an additional

Acknowledgments

WA was funded through the KU Leuven Research Fund. JA is funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal. The comments and suggestions of three anonymous reviewers are greatly acknowledged.

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