Carleton Travel Strategy

Our travel strategy should be simple, self-guided, open and transparent, and driven by an overall goal.

Simple: there is enough administrative burden associated with travel. Our researchers want a simple system that provides them with feedback on their performance compared to their previous practice (through time) and to others.

Self-guided: there is such a diversity of researchers with different views on the usefulness of travel for research that we ask our researchers to evaluate for themselves the rationale for their travel emissions. We provide a ranking table with the general principles. Interested researchers can sign up to the strategy (it is not compulsory).

Assisted self-monitored: we would like to offer a way to report your travel emissions for Carleton-related work and research. One strategy being explored is to have the My Travel system provide users and administration with a yearly travel emissions report. Another one would be to find a way for Conferences organized at Carleton to easily come up with a travel emissions report. We recognize that not all trips are equal. See Table 1: how to justify your travel emissions.

Open and transparent: we want the public to know that we are taking our emissions seriously and acting to reduce them. For this, we would like Carleton to make public our emissions when the system is established.

Driven by an overall goal: we acknowledge the benefits of travelling for research, and the necessity to scale up the effort for emissions reductions throughout the entire community. We are working to develop alternatives to travelling by: (1) identifying alternatives to travelling with modern modes of communication; (2) making efforts ourselves to develop and use the web-based research space.

The fundamental basis for the Carleton travel strategy should be grounded on the Canadian government’s target of reducing emissions by at least 80% from 1990 levels by 2050, as stated in the December 2015 Paris Agreement, signed by the Canadian Government.

Scope: This strategy refers to travel emissions undertaken for work activities only. It does not include personal travel or commuting to work.

1. Monitor and reduce. I will keep track of the carbon emissions of my professional activities, and set personal objectives to reduce them in line with or larger than my country’s carbon emissions commitments (see Section III).
2. Account and justify. I will justify my travel considering the location and purpose of the event, my level of seniority, and the alternative options available.
3. Prioritize, prepare and replace. For activities that I organize, I will choose the location giving high priority to a low carbon footprint of travel of the participants, and I will encourage, incorporate and technically support online speakers and webcasts to reduce unnecessary travel.
4. Encourage and stimulate. I will resist my own FoMo (Fear of Missing Out) from not attending everything and work towards sensitizing others to the need of the research community to walk the talk on climate change.
5. I will work with my peers, my University and Funders to value alternative metrics of success and encourage the promotion of low-carbon research as a realizable alternative to a high-carbon research career.

The decision tree aims to help you identify low-carbon travel alternatives, and help you maximize the benefits of your travel emissions.

Table 1: Ranking different types of travel

We refer to research stages as follows: Stage 1: Early Stage Researchers (for example, up to 2 years after PhD); Stage 2: Intermediate Stage Researchers (for example, up to about 10 years after PhD); Stage 3: Established Researchers (for example, in permanent positions with over 10 years since PhD).