Detail publikace

Trend towards virtual and hybrid conferences may be an effective climate change mitigation strategy

TAO, Y. STECKEL, D. KLEMEŠ, J. YOU, F.

Originální název

Trend towards virtual and hybrid conferences may be an effective climate change mitigation strategy

Typ

článek v časopise ve Web of Science, Jimp

Jazyk

angličtina

Originální abstrakt

Since 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has urged event holders to shift conferences online. Virtual and hybrid conferences are greener alternatives to in-person conferences, yet their environmental sustainability has not been fully assessed. Considering food, accommodation, preparation, execution, information and communication technology, and transportation, here we report comparative life cycle assessment results of in-person, virtual, and hybrid conferences and consider carbon footprint trade-offs between in-person participation and hybrid conferences. We find that transitioning from in-person to virtual conferencing can substantially reduce the carbon footprint by 94% and energy use by 90%. For the sake of maintaining more than 50% of in-person participation, carefully selected hubs for hybrid conferences have the potential to slash carbon footprint and energy use by two-thirds. Furthermore, switching the dietary type of future conferences to plant-based diets and improving energy efficiencies of the information and communication technology sector can further reduce the carbon footprint of virtual conferences. Moving conferences from in-person to virtual and hybrid modes may have emissions reductions benefits. Here the authors find that the switch to virtual and hybrid conferencing reduces the carbon footprint by 94% when it comes to the switch to virtual conferencing, and 67% for hybrid conferences with carefully selected hubs.

Klíčová slova

carbon footprint; climate change; COVID-19; energy use; information

Autoři

TAO, Y.; STECKEL, D.; KLEMEŠ, J.; YOU, F.

Vydáno

16. 12. 2021

Nakladatel

Nature Publishing Group

Místo

NATURE RESEARCH, HEIDELBERGER PLATZ 3, BERLIN 14197, GERMANY

ISSN

2041-1723

Periodikum

NATURE COMMUNICATIONS

Ročník

12

Číslo

1

Stát

Spojené království Velké Británie a Severního Irska

Strany od

7324

Strany do

7324

Strany počet

14

URL

https://www.proquest.com/docview/2610660191/fulltextPDF/544DF808975C4316PQ/1?accountid=17115

Plný text v Digitální knihovně

http://hdl.handle.net/11012/204007

BibTex

@article{BUT175668,
  author="Yanqiu {Tao} and Debbie {Steckel} and Jiří {Klemeš} and Fengqi {You}",
  title="Trend towards virtual and hybrid conferences may be an effective climate change mitigation strategy",
  journal="NATURE COMMUNICATIONS",
  year="2021",
  volume="12",
  number="1",
  pages="7324--7324",
  doi="10.1038/s41467-021-27251-2",
  issn="2041-1723",
  url="https://www.proquest.com/docview/2610660191/fulltextPDF/544DF808975C4316PQ/1?accountid=17115"
}