Evaluating features of scientific conferences: A call for improvements

Sarvenaz Sarabipour; Benjamin Schwessinger; Fiona N. Mumoki; Aneth D. Mwakilili; Aziz Khan; Humberto J. Debat; Pablo J. Sáez; Samantha Seah; Tomislav Mestrovic

With the current career norms, researchers are expected to fly nationally and internationally, often several times a year, for scientific conferences, which adds up to a significant amount of emissions. A single researcher's flight from the United States to Europe and back to attend a conference will generate over 1,000 kg of CO2. There are 57 countries where the average person produces less CO2 in a year (20) (Figures 3, S3) . Air travel by 6,741 attendees to and from a single meeting of the American Association of Geographers in Seattle produced ~16,000 metric tons of CO2, equivalent to the amount that 53,500 people living in Haiti generated during 2014 (21, 22) . The total carbon footprint from a single annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, hosting 31,000 attendees, is equivalent to the annual carbon footprint of 1000 medium-sized laboratories (23) . In addition, each night spent in a hotel creates over 70 lbs of CO2 from fossil fuel derived electricity. Multiplying these amounts of CO2 generated by the hundreds and thousands attending a single conference (Table S1) (8, 24) , shows why curbing emissions through diminishing scientific air travel must become a priority for every researcher, university, scientific society and funding agency.