Finnish varsities get 6 recommendations to cut carbon footprint

Referring to a study, the University of Helsinki in a press release made six recommendations that Finnish universities could use to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of their travels.

Researchers of the study said (1.) alternative transport forms should be strongly encouraged, (2) emission targets and calculators have to be standardised, (3) stopovers and one and two-day trips by air have to be reduced, (4) the universities should drastically cut down their CO2 emissions, (5) prefer longer stays in short-distance locations, and (6) do more researches on the individual habits and effects of travel to help the country reach the 2035 carbon neutrality targets set by the government.

Veronica Ahonen and her colleagues from the University of Helsinki collected data from the 14 Finnish universities to form a comprehensive picture of the state of academic mobility in the country. The study combined existing literature and strategy and mobility reports from the universities and their travel agencies with GIS analysis.

The key results revealed that universities are in varying states of sustainability with some of them acting as clear trendsetters and others lagging behind.

Although the universities are performing well in areas such as preferring European destinations over intercontinental ones, they could still improve by reducing stopovers and one and two-day trips.

With the challenge posed by the global climate crisis, universities are at a crossroads. While they simultaneously must contribute to an increasingly globalising society through international research collaboration, they must also drastically cut down their CO2 emissions, if they wish to comply with the government-set targets and to be lead by example.

Based on the data provided by travel agencies, the researchers studied the most common aircraft carriers, the number of landings, total flight kilometres, departure and destination locations, duration days, CO2 emissions, the number of total employees and the percentage of flights booked outside the official travel agency.

The choice of each parameter was based on the existing literature. For instance, the number of stopovers is deemed important, since for flights over 800 km even 25% of their emissions are produced during the landing and takeoff phase so that direct flights generally produce less CO2 emissions. Past research has also revealed that short stays at faraway destinations produce the highest carbon footprint, which is why it would be important to prefer longer stays in short-distance locations.

“As it is an ongoing effort, it is likely that within a few years, all universities in Finland have at least considered it,” said Ahonen.

The study results revealed a few key areas of development. Currently, academics have little choice concerning the choice of airline and travel type – e.g., at the University of Helsinki, the official travel guidelines state that work-related travel should take as little time as possible and be as inexpensive as possible. Flights with one or two stopovers were also still relatively common. The travel locations also revealed some interesting results, with European destinations being far the most common, and with large cities with academic hubs dominating the results. These cities may also act as important nodes with major airports, which is why a lot of stopovers are taking place there. Air travel to northern Finland was still relatively quite common, as flights over a distance of 500 kilometres clearly outperform train travel in terms of speed.

“In a way we are in the middle of an interesting case study. Due to COVID-19, travel at the University of Helsinki decreased by as much as 87%, as almost all functions of the university were moved online. This era has revealed both the opportunities and challenges of virtual presence. Not all functions can or should necessarily be moved online. Informal gatherings and networking occasions involve a lot of random human interactions that videoconferencing technology currently fails to replicate. It is here where more research on the individual habits and effects of travel is needed,” said Ahonen.