The Need for Sustainability, Equity, and International Exchange: Perspectives of Early Career Environmental Psychologists on the Future of Conferences.

At the 2019 and 2021 International Conference on Environmental Psychology, discussions were held on the future of conferences in light of the enormous greenhouse gas emissions and inequities associated with conference travel. In this manuscript, we provide an early career researcher (ECR) perspective on this discussion. We argue that travel-intensive conference practices damage both the environment and our credibility as a discipline, conflict with the intrinsic values and motivations of our discipline, and are inequitable. As such, they must change. This change can be achieved by moving toward virtual and hybrid conferences, which can reduce researchers' carbon footprints and promote equity, if employed carefully and with informal exchange as a priority. By acting collectively and with the support of institutional change, we can adapt conference travel norms in our field. To investigate whether our arguments correspond to views in the wider community of ECRs within environmental psychology, we conducted a community case study. By leveraging our professional networks and directly contacting researchers in countries underrepresented in those networks, we recruited 117 ECRs in 32 countries for an online survey in February 2022. The surveyed ECRs supported a change in conference travel practices, including flying less, and perceived the number of researchers wanting to reduce their travel emissions to be growing. Thirteen percent of respondents had even considered leaving academia due to travel requirements. Concerning alternative conference formats, a mixed picture emerged. Overall, participants had slightly negative evaluations of virtual conferences, but expected them to improve within the next 5 years. However, ECRs with health issues, facing visa challenges, on low funding, living in remote areas, with caretaking obligations or facing travel restrictions due to COVID-19 expected a switch toward virtual or hybrid conferences to positively affect their groups. Participants were divided about their ability to build professional relationships in virtual settings, but believed that maintaining relationships virtually is possible. We conclude by arguing that the concerns of ECRs in environmental psychology about current and alternative conference practices must be taken seriously. We call on our community to work on collective solutions and less travel-intensive conference designs using participatory methods. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2022 Köhler, Kreil, Wenger, Darmandieu, Graves, Haugestad, Holzen, Keller, Lloyd, Marczak, Međugorac and Rosa.

Shifting from academic air travel to sustainable research exchange: Examining networking efficacy during virtual conferences

Academic conferences are important places for exchanging scientific knowledge and building professional networks, but they also contribute to climate change through emissions caused by air travel. Hence, more sustainable conferences are needed. The unforeseen COVID-19 pandemic presented an opportunity to develop more sustainable conferences by shifting to effective virtual communication. Studies have demonstrated that virtual conferences are often more sustainable, but also more inclusive than in-person conferences, but that they – like in-person conferences – also have drawbacks. Researchers perceive ineffective networking due to a lack of social interaction as the biggest disadvantage of current virtual conferences. This study aims to examine researchers' experiences with virtual conferences by investigating the factors that influence networking efficacy during virtual conferences. To do so, 21 semi-structured interviews were conducted with virtual conference organisers and attendees from various career stages, countries and scientific fields. The input-process-output framework was used to structure the factors that participants mentioned as facilitating or constraining networking. The results demonstrate conference organisers' important role in thinking carefully about technical equipment that facilitates networking and specifically planning virtual conferences’ networking sessions. This study is the first to structure factors that influence networking efficacy systematically during virtual conferences. The results of this study revealed that best practice examples of effective virtual networking exist, thus providing a starting point for the shift from academic air travel to more sustainable research exchange.ISSN:0959-652

Transformation toward sustainable academia: ETH Zurich’s Air Travel Project

Making academia more sustainable necessitates reducing emissions from academic air travel substantially. This requires a transformation of the academic system, including norms, practices, institutional rules, and framework conditions. We reflect on how the ETH Air Travel Project aims to reduce air travel at ETH Zurich while maintaining scientific excellence.ISSN:0940-555

Public perception and acceptance of negative emission technologies – framing effects in Switzerland

Limiting global warming to 1.5 °C requires negative emission technologies (NETs), which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and permanently store it to offset unavoidable emissions. Successful large-scale deployment of NETs depends not only on technical, biophysical, ecological, and economic factors, but also on public perception and acceptance. However, previous studies on this topic have been scarce. In 2019, Switzerland adopted a net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 target, which will require the use of NETs. To examine the current Swiss public perception and acceptance of five different NETs, we conducted an online survey with Swiss citizens (N = 693). By using a between-subjects design, we investigated differences in public opinion, perception, and acceptance across three of the most used frames in the scientific literature — technological fix, moral hazard, and climate emergency. Results showed that the public perception and acceptance of NETs does not differ between the frames. The technological fix frame best reflected participants’ opinion, whereas participants perceived the moral hazard frame the least credible and the climate emergency frame the most unclear. Moreover, our findings confirm the public’s unfamiliarity with NETs. We found no strong opposition, as participants indicated a moderate acceptance and a neutral evaluation of all five NETs, with afforestation standing out as the most accepted and positively evaluated NET. We conclude that, in the future, the public debate on NETs should be intensified, and the public perception should be monitored regularly to inform the development of NETs.ISSN:0165-0009ISSN:1573-148

Challenges and strategies in transdisciplinary research – early career researchers’ perspectives

Addressing socio-environmental challenges requires a multifaceted approach and a comprehensive understanding, which is precisely what transdisciplinary research can provide. The transdisciplinary approach, however, brings new challenges to early career researchers, who have to acquire the necessary methods and skills while conducting their ongoing research. Along with increasing access to resources and training, guidance from supervisors and informal exchange with other transdisciplinary early career researchers play key roles in effectively supporting them.ISSN:0940-555