Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A department policy requiring rail for any journey achievable in under six hours, paired with promotion criteria that do not penalise reduced international conference attendance.
Editorial commentary
Academic travel is a leading scope-3 emissions category for most research universities, often exceeding building energy. The Tyndall Centre and academic flying literature have documented that a minority of frequent flyers account for a large fraction of departmental emissions. Mitigation strategies include institutional travel policies that prefer rail under defined thresholds (e.g., journeys under six hours), virtual or hybrid conference attendance, internal carbon pricing on flights, and explicit consideration of travel in promotion criteria. Funder reporting (e.g., the Concordat for the Environmental Sustainability of Research and Innovation Practice) increasingly requires disclosure.
How this differs from conference travel emissions
This page covers the full range of academic business travel — conference attendance, fieldwork, external examining, collaboration visits, sabbaticals, and site visits — not only conferences. Conference travel emissions covers the single largest and most policy-scrutinised sub-category in detail, including specific mitigation levers such as virtual/hybrid attendance and internal flight carbon pricing; this page is the broader umbrella and the right entry point for fieldwork- or examining-related travel, which conference-specific policy often does not address.
The Concordat, correctly attributed
The Concordat for the Environmental Sustainability of Research and Innovation Practice is a cross-sector UK document hosted by Wellcome, with the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges (EAUC) providing secretariat functions. UKRI, NIHR, the British Academy, and numerous UK universities are signatories — it is accurate to say UKRI has signed the Concordat, not that UKRI authored or owns it.
Worked example
Illustrative composite: a department introducing a policy that any journey achievable by rail in under six hours must be booked by rail rather than flown, combined with promotion-criteria language that explicitly does not penalise reduced international conference attendance, is a concrete combination of the two mitigation levers most frequently cited in the flying-less-in-academia literature.
Related pages
See also conference travel emissions, virtual conferences, scope 1/2/3 emissions, and carbon accounting for research.
References
- Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, flying-less-in-academia literature.
- Concordat for the Environmental Sustainability of Research and Innovation Practice (wellcome.org, ukri.org, eauc.org.uk).
Also known as
Academic air travel emissions · Business travel emissions (research)
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