Evaluating and reducing the environmental impact of academic research in Geosciences
However, a discrepancy appears between the message carried by geoscientists (warning on climate change, GHG emission targets to be followed in order not to exceed a warming of +2°C, incentives to implementation of mitigation and adaptation measures, etc.) and the environmental costs of research practices (frequent national and international travels, extensive use of digital tools, products used in biology/chemistry labs, field campaigns, etc.).
In order to preserve the credibility of warnings on the climate and ecological emergency, and to contribute to the common and global effort to achieve sustainability, it is necessary to question the way we conduct our professional activities.
A first step is to assess and quantify the impact of our professional practices on the environment, in order to then build mitigation strategies, and to finally implement effective individual or collective measures.
This session aims at sharing actions initiated at any scale (individual, research team/project, University/research Institute, international collaborative network) questioning the environmental footprint of research.
We invite contributions focusing on (but not restricted to):
- quantification of the environmental footprint of research (GHG footprint, water footprint, impact on biodiversity, etc.)
- initiatives to make the scientific community aware of this issue
- feedbacks on the implementation of collective measures to reduce this footprint
- potential barriers to overcome in moving towards a more sustainable academic research
Interdisciplinary work (including sociology, psychology, economy) on how to implement strategies to reduce the ecological footprint of science is welcome.