Impact of international multi-hub conferences on reducing carbon footprint
As the global research enterprise grapples with the challenge of a low carbon future, a key challenge is the future of international conferences. The World Climate Research Programme/Stratosphere-troposphere Processes And their Role in Climate (WCRP/SPARC) project has conducted a study on the impact of international multi-center conferences on reducing carbon footprints.
In order to reduce the carbon footprint in the context of a transition to a low-carbon future, the WCRP SPARC project organized its 7th General Assembly in October 2022 in a hybrid format in Qingdao (China), Reading (UK) and Boulder (USA). This format combines elements of the traditional face-to-face conference and the virtual conference.
The study by the WCRP SPARC community, published in BAMS, concludes that, in this case, the multi-hub approach reduced the carbon footprint of travel by a factor of 2.3 to 4.1 times compared to the footprint of a single-location conference.
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Read the study published in BAMS, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-23-0160.1
