By Sally Wkye (Institute of Health & Wellbeing Social Sciences)

International travel is integral to research in leading universities. We travel to conferences and meetings to share research findings and ideas and progress our studies. Interacting with our peers enables our creativity and helps us keep at the cutting edge. Senior colleagues also travel to recruit international students – the lifeblood of our learning and teaching.   

But the carbon cost of our travels is not sustainable. Pre-COVID, in 2018/19, business travel (that is, all travel associated with our work) accounted for 20% of our emissions and, as the figure shows, that had been increasing year on year. The main culprit was international air travel.

COVID-19 has reduced our travel massively and increased our use of digital communications. With this experience, we knew we needed to renew our commitment to avoid a rush back to unsustainable practices.

 

Commitment to equity 

To help support all of the actions listed in the University of Glasgow’s Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan, Green Glasgow, we developed Guidance on Sustainable Business Travel for Staff and Post Graduate Research Students. As I write, in December 2020, we are in the finalising the guidance for a launch in early 2021.   

The guidance is underpinned by a commitment to equity. We know that working internationally is essential for many of us and  some travel is unavoidable.  But as we work to reduce our emissions from business travel we should prioritise benefits amongst those who have most to gain – those in early and mid-career who are establishing their careers and their networks.    

Five ingredients

The guidance has five key ingredients.   

  1. Information on carbon emissions 
  2. Target-setting 
  3. Decision-making aid(s) 
  4. Monitoring and reporting progress 
  5. Enabling measures/policies 

Information

Data is powerful. We already know that business travel accounted for 20% of our carbon emissions in 2018/19, that emissions were rising because of business travel and that was because we were taking more international flights (see figure).  New information will become available as we move to a new contract with our travel provider which will allow us to monitor carbon emissions at the level of School and Institute and to look at which grades of staff are creating most emissions 

Target

Maintaining reductions in emissions from business travel that we have experienced since COVID will support the University of Glasgow’s commitment to its net-zero emissions target.  We have set an important target, taking into account that it must be achievable in the context of our vital international collaborations. 

University of Glasgow’s Target for Sustainable Business Travel:

  • To reduce emissions from Business Travel from 13,194 ton CO2e in 2018/19 to 5597 ton CO2e in 2029/30 

This equates to a reduction of 7.5% year on year, and is in line with recent advice from the United Nations Environment Programme 

Decision-making aid 

Four main actions will enable every member of staff, at every level of seniority, in every Service, School and Institute to contribute to achieving this target.  

  1. Avoid travelling where possible – Use alternatives instead, such as teleconferencing and videoconferencing.  We now have a lot of experience of that. 
  2. Identify opportunities to fund and use technological solutions for virtual working in grant proposals – especially to support partner organisations which do not have access to high quality virtual working technologies.    
  3. Choose public transport (such as trains) when travel is required  
  4. Maximise the value of any given travel episode – By, for example, combining opportunities for further research links or fieldwork with attending a conference.   

The guidance has a decision aid to help individuals decide whether and how to travel – including weighing up the costs and benefits for people at different stages in their career.   

Monitoring and reporting 

Knowing how we get on in implementing the guidance is critical to its success.  We will collate data on carbon emissions from travel booked through our UofG travel provider, add to it calculations of carbon emissions from travel claimed through expenses, aggregate it to the level of the University’s Schools and Institutes and feed the data back to them twice a year, with carbon emissions 2018/19 as baseline.  Schools and Institutes will decide the best way to implement a reduction themselves and can learn from one another through our networks.  Schools and Institutes will report to their College Management Group twice a year, and the University’s Senior Management Group will also monitor progress.   

Enabling Policies 

The University of Glasgow will enable the guidance by some important measures. It will: 

  • Undertake equality impact assessments to check that guidance and policies on reducing carbon emissions from business travel are proportionate, fair, and equitable, seeking to redress existing inequalities within the sector (by gender, career stage, global inequalities of opportunity, caring responsibilities, disability and other protected characteristics). 
  • Check promotion criteria so that staff who reduce or eliminate international travel are not disadvantaged. 
  • Build on staff experiences of working from home during the COVID-19 crisis to prioritise the use of videoconferencing facilities accessible to all staff, with appropriate guidance and support on their use. 
  • Support and promote the use of alternative means of disseminating research, forming collaborations and engaging with others, such as social media, including advice on how to gather and evaluate social media “reach”. 
  • Ensure good communication with line managers to prioritise low carbon travel for all staff in decision-making about travel. 
  • Seek to obtain discounts for low-carbon travel where possible, through the bulk purchasing of season and other tickets from travel providers and developing sustainability discount agreements with, e.g. NextBike, ScotRail and asking the University’s travel agent providing lower carbon travel options at the time of travel requests. See here for current benefits. 
  • Ask applicants for internal grants to comment on sustainability/environmental footprint on all internal grant applications.  
  • Advocate for changes in travel patterns throughout the higher education sector, in collaboration with other HEIs and funding bodies.

Contributing to net zero 

We know from the consultation on the University’s draft climate change strategy that there is overwhelming support from the University community for net zero carbon emissions by 2035. Students and staff alike are fully behind all actions planned and taken.  The business travel guidance, by supporting behaviour change, is an important step towards that. 

First published: 10 February 2022

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