An average researcher travels at least once a year to a worldwide conference, not rarely to a different continent; and likewise for collaboration, panel review or similar activities. This is usually done by fliyng which is considered the least sustainable mean of transportation. About one third of the total energy consumption worldwide is used for transportation, reducing travels or at least choosing a more efficient way to travel became nowadays mandatory.

The following self-commitment aims to reduce the impact of research/work related travels. Adhering with the form below has no legal binding, you simply add one more counts to the “committers” counter that is displayed in the page. If you want you can give the consent to publish your name in the public list of committers. A private list with all the adhesion is kept by the sustainability group.

This self-commitment project was inspired by a similar page set up by the Free University Berlin.

The self-commitment: research/work related meeting should be done, when possible, virtually (i.e. videoconference). When this is not possible and the meeting point is under 1000 km away and reachable in less than 12 h via more sustainable means, these should be chosen (in Sweden this is a fairly easy choice since trains are driven by 100% renewable energy).