Reducing air travel related greenhouse gas emissions in academia: An empirical policy overview

Demand for air travel must be reduced to align the aviation sector with international climate agreements. In line with this necessity, as well as motivated by the notion that academia has a responsibility to foster sustainable development, some academic institutions have begun reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with their members’ air travel. Based on an online survey from early 2021, this article summarizes the practices of 35 academic institutions in Western Europe and the US that are committed to achieving such reductions. It aims to facilitate the exchange of knowledge between these institutions, thus creating a basis for informed development of future projects. A new classification of policy measures in this area is applied in this article, which reveals that policy activity focuses on low-coercive measures that encourage substituting air travel with virtual communication technology and ground-based transportation. The findings further indicate that the collection of data on air travel is an essential but challenging precursor to policy action. The discussion shows that these findings are consistent with country-specific analyses of academic institutions’ policy documents. The need for continued action to reduce emissions related to air travel, including ongoing investments in virtual communication, after the COVID-19 pandemic is emphasized. We also discuss potential acceptance of more coercive policy measures and suggest tackling the systemic effects of institutional internationalization strategies by including private travel needs engendered by international recruitment efforts in institutions’ calculations of travel emissions.