To fly or not to fly? How did we make this decision? A reflective Q&A with the ACCESS team.

Published on 12 November 2024

In July 2024, the International Association People-Environment Studies (IAPS) 28th Conference was held in Barcelona. It was the first in-person IAPS event since the Covid-19 epidemic. It was viewed as an important opportunity for those working in Environmental Social Sciences to attend. Weighing up the pros and cons of attendance, were four academics – two early career researchers and two senior academics. Each one reflects on their choices and the ACCESS Guiding Principles. Who went? How did they travel? And what did their choices reveal?

Stewart Barr and Steve Guilbert (ACCESS Leads for Environmental Sustainability) catch up with their colleagues Sarah Golding, George Warren, Patrick Devine-Wright and Birgitta Gatersleben to discuss their travel decisions.

Steve: Stewart, can you tell us why people are so concerned about air travel?

Stewart: From a climate perspective, the way we travel has a significant impact. For example, the well-known travel website seat61 estimates that travelling by train rather than flying can reduce the carbon impact of travel by 80-90%.

The figures can be quite stark. A return trip by air from Exeter in England to Freiburg in Germany would emit 529 kilogrammes of carbon dioxide equivalent per passenger (CO2e). The same journey by rail would only emit 71 kilogrammes of CO2e per passenger (ecopassenger) – less than 20% of the carbon emissions from the equivalent plane journey.

Thinking about the wider context, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that by 2030, per person CO2e emissions must reduce to just 2.5 tonnes each year. This means just one short return flight within Europe would be more than one fifth of someone’s carbon footprint. Yet today, the average UK citizen emits over 8 tonnes of CO2e.

Steve: So how does this relate to the research community? Why do you think it is important that academics and practitioners reflect on their transport choices when travelling to attend conferences and other professional activities?

Stewart: As academics who are advocating action to reduce our impact on the climate, there is a need for us to be seen ‘walking the talk’. However, academic literature in this field demonstrates there are many barriers to this.

Kristian Bjørkdahl et al.’s (2022) edited volume of Academic Flying and the Means of Communication highlights that academic aeromobility is ingrained in research and education practice. International travel is associated with success, high status, and career progression through global networking opportunities. This of course reflects the embeddedness of flying in society more generally, especially for leisure and tourism.

Academics need to recognise the impact of flying and acknowledge the barriers to reducing its impact. However, it would be too crude to argue for simplistic rules that should apply to everyone in all circumstances. There are critically important equality, diversity & inclusion (EDI) considerations when travel is concerned.

I would argue that dealing with the issue of flying and academic travel needs to be contextual. Travel decisions will always need to recognise individual circumstances. For example, while train travel may be appropriate for some or even many, it comes with its own challenges. So, we need a careful, sensitive and contextual approach to making our decisions.

Birds eye view looking down at people seated at a conference

Credit: Mikael Krister, Unsplash

Steve: Sarah, when you first submitted an abstract to be considered for presentation at the conference IAPS, the plan was to travel as a team to Barcelona by train. Why were you keen to do that?

Sarah: I suppose we had two key motivations. One was to minimise our own carbon emissions from attending the conference. The other was to maximise our time together as a team and make the journey part of the conference experience.

We were inspired by other groups who have done this in recent years. For example, many of the CAST team travelled to Denmark together by train to a conference in 2023. We thought it would be good to trial this for ourselves.

Being involved with ACCESS – and our other research projects – we are all acutely aware of the urgency of the climate and nature crises. Both as academics and as citizens we are keen to play our part by reducing our own carbon footprints. We felt it would be hypocritical if we didn’t explore the options for train travel. After all, it is a privilege to have the opportunity for international travel and conference attendance. Most people in the world, including other academics, do not fly.

But avoiding air travel is not just about the reduction of carbon emissions. It is increasingly recognised that there are physical and mental wellbeing benefits associated with ‘slow travel’. There are also positive outcomes for teams who travel together. Slow travel can offer team bonding opportunities such as collaborative working time, socialising, and shared experiences of changing landscapes and food.

Credit: Dmitry Dreyer, Unsplash

Steve: Sounds like it would have been great! In the end, however, I understand that most of the journeys ended up being by plane. Why was that? Were there specific challenges you faced?

George: At least on the way to Barcelona, I didn’t face too many challenges and took the train for the outward journey. As a Swiss person, I spent much of my youth on European trains, and they are a comfortable space for me.

I also had a holiday in France booked for the week before the conference. This further minimised my greenhouse gas emissions and helped break up my journey. This made the journey a lot simpler, and I was happy to take the additional time needed for land-based travel to the conference.

On the way back though, I ended up flying. For personal reasons, I needed to be back home the same evening that the conference finished. It just wasn’t possible to make that journey by train, within that timeframe. I would have had to leave very early in the morning, before the conference had finished, so it just wasn’t feasible this time.

Birgitta: I was enthusiastic about the train journey plan. I think it would have been a lot of fun. In the team we talked about travelling together, staying over in Paris as a half-way point and then travelling on by train – maybe even get a bit of work done on the train. However, this didn’t happen for a range of reasons. I ended up linking the trip to a family holiday. The difference in costs between flying and taking the train was staggering, even more so because I wasn’t travelling alone. I decided to fly. I felt guilty about this, considered cancelling the trip altogether, but that would not have gone down well with the family.

Even if I had not travelled with my family I would have had to think carefully about the costs of the journey. Travelling by train would have required a stopover at some point for most of us as it is a long journey. Paris is the obvious point to do this. However, the return journey from Barcelona to the UK coincided with the build-up to the Olympic Games in Paris, which drove up the costs even further.

We talked about the additional costs of travelling by train as a team. ACCESS could have supported these costs – but then it would have had budget implications for future events. Would it be fair on our early career researchers to ‘blow the budget’ on attending this one event? Or would it be better to ensure they have the financial opportunity to attend future conferences? I’m not sure there is an easy or ‘right’ answer here. But it is an important thing to consider in these decisions.

One could argue that fewer of us could have travelled to the conference, which is a fair point. We do normally consider this. However, this conference was the first in-person IAPS conference since Covid and it was important to us to reconnect with our colleagues from across the world.

Steve: And Patrick, your transport preferences meant that you decided not to attend at all, is that right?

Patrick: Yes, I was really keen to go, but also face a continual challenge of having to assess how much time I can allocate to any given work activity. Like many of us, I face numerous and competing demands, as well as the desire to avoid working during evenings and weekends!

This challenge of time management has only increased due to my commitment to avoid flying unless absolutely necessary for meetings or conferences outside of the UK. The fact is that travelling over land from the UK is not only consequential for emissions, but also takes longer in terms of time to reach destinations. For IAPS, I was forced to look ahead and make an assessment of the time investment. Realistically, this was about 10 days for me. My journey would have been 2-3 days each way, plus the 4 days of the conference itself.

I also considered the impact of having to travel across weekends. Plus, there is the potential fatigue of long-distance train travel in the heat of July in France and Spain. When set against the additional challenges of other work duties and deadlines for early July, I felt I was forced to decide not to attend at all.

Steve: So that just leaves you Sarah. How did you end up travelling?

Sarah: By plane, although I put off making the final decision as I was feeling ‘carbon guilt’ from the idea of flying. As the conference approached, it became clearer that we would not be travelling as a team by train. So the potential benefits of spending time together – working, but also having fun and getting to know each other better – would be lost from the journey.

Like Patrick, I was very aware of the time impact. But I also didn’t want to leave home at 5am and still be travelling at 10pm the same day, just to minimise time away from home. Plus, as I work part-time, a 10-day round trip has a greater impact on my work hours than it might for my full-time colleagues. Especially if those colleagues would no longer be with me!

But the main reason for flying was that I was anxious about making a 2-3 day train journey alone. Unlike George, I am not familiar with European trains! I was conscious I would be a solo female traveller, without much travel experience. I do not speak French or Spanish, and was especially concerned about how I would manage if I missed a train connection or had to find a hotel at short notice.

Man sitting in a plane next to the window seat

Credit: Daniel McCullough, Unsplash

Steve: Thanks everyone for reflecting on some of the reasons for your travel choices. We spend a lot of time discussing travel decisions within ACCESS, especially in the context of our Guiding Principles. The challenge seems to be that if we start from a ‘default’ position that academics should stop flying, we potentially face unintended consequences, such as excluding some people from taking part in activities such as conferences? What do you think about this?

George: Clearly, there are tensions that need to be addressed. Recent debates have highlighted the clear negative environmental impacts of flying. Academics are often highly aeromobile. But it is also clear that decisions about modes of transport do not rely solely on concerns about the environment.

We need to be honest that ‘slow travel’ will be easier for certain groups to achieve compared to others. It often involves crossing multiple international and language borders, and can require more administration, such as visas and other travel approvals.

For example, I am a cisgender, white man who can speak fluent English and French, as well as some Spanish. I also hold a Swiss passport, which makes travel into the Schengen Area much easier. I am very aware of how my positionality may make it easier for me to use land-based travel to get from the UK to Spain.

Repeating what Stewart has discussed elsewhere: being able to take land-based travel is at least partly dependent upon having the required competencies. It is also related to systemic issues, that place greater structural barriers in the way for some people.

Stewart: As I indicated in my first comment, there cannot be a single rule, applicable to everyone. Contextual and individualised decision making is important. In my experience of chairing a university group on how to promote rail travel as an alternative to flying, there are a range of challenges that people face when deciding on the right travel for them.

Some of these challenges are structural barriers. These might include poor booking systems and lack of information about travel options. There could also be perception-based challenges, such as under- and over-estimating travel times and costs associated with different types of travel.

Concerns will often be related to health, safety and personal wellbeing. And of course, there is inequity in travel. Different people will face different constraints, limiting the options available to them. Early career researchers, women, and people living in low- and middle-income countries all face greater structural barriers.

Taking everyone on this journey, if I can put it like that, requires care, empathy and respect. The most important thing is that we all engage with the agenda. We need to recognise the importance of minimising our carbon impact where we can, but we also need to uphold our commitments to EDI and knowledge co-production. These will sometimes be in tension, and we will have to manage that. What we can do is to recognise these tensions and work to get the balance right.

Sarah: I agree with you Stewart. Balancing these tensions is a challenge, but one that we need to face with openness. Attending international conferences can help people gain professional skills and be exposed to different perspectives. There is social value that emerges from these events, especially for those who don’t already have established networks.

I am painfully aware of the carbon footprint of my trip, and recognise my privilege in being able to attend the conference. Nonetheless, I learnt a huge amount while in Barcelona. I attended some really good quality interdisciplinary sessions. I made new connections with international colleagues working on people-environment challenges. I also enjoyed the informal time – chatting to people over coffee or lunch and exploring the city with friends. I came away with new perspectives, new papers, new ideas.

Birgitta: You all raise good points here. The answers are not straightforward. Of course, in an ideal world, it would be great if academics could stop flying immediately. But we know this isn’t realistic, at least not within our current system of academic practice.

We also need to be mindful, as employers, of the duty of care issues. We will need to support people to feel comfortable and competent to engage with land-based travel, especially if long distance or solo-travelling.

Some people can choose to stop flying. They may decide to travel less or can afford to travel by (often more expensive and slower) alternatives. However, this is not feasible for everyone. It is still important for people’s career development to engage with others in-person and build or sustain their networks. We have to be careful not to exclude people from engaging with conferences and other international events.

Rather than putting all the responsibility for reducing carbon emissions on individuals, we should be agitating for change at a structural level. We need shifts in research practice, so that academia becomes a less carbon-intensive endeavour.

As environmental social scientists, we need to reflect on the environmental impact of international events, while still acknowledging the potential social and professional benefits for academics. How can we maintain opportunities for making and nurturing international connections while reducing our environmental impact? As we transition to net zero societies, balancing these tensions will be a key challenge for research communities.

Credit: Guillaume Didelet, Unsplash

Steve: Thank you everyone for your frank insights! Stewart, do you have any closing thoughts about this?

Stewart: I think I’d want to reinforce the importance of being constantly mindful and cognisant of our responsibilities that the Guiding Principles outline. These do require us to consider environmental sustainability, EDI and knowledge co-production. That does not mean we will always take one pre-determined course of action – such actions are for us to decide on according to context.

But we need to satisfy ourselves and our peers (and the wider community) that these are matters of great concern to us. Perhaps the problems of ‘academic flying’ that have sparked so much recent debate are partly the result of an un-thinking obsession with jetting off to the next big event.

What we are advocating for through ACCESS is a mindful, balanced and contextualised approach to academic travel that is sustainable, equitable and inclusive.

Steve: Yes, I agree. As an environmental social science community, we need to continue asking these challenging questions, but with sensitivity and nuance. We need to understand how we can support researchers and practitioners to connect, while at the same time working to rapidly and drastically reduce the carbon emissions from our activities.

Guiding principles illustrated with two people giving a 'high five' one standing and one in a wheelchair and four arms and hands holding up a banner that says Knowledge Co-Production