Activities per year
Abstract
With the simultaneous rise of concern about the climate crisis and the growing internationalization of research institutions, academic mobility poses an “academic paradox”: knowledge of the environmental harm of aviation does not necessarily translate into action. Universities must make changes to their mobility habits if they wish to comply with governmental carbon neutrality targets and lead with example. This research looks at Finland’s 14 universities and identifies the patterns and trends of academic mobility from a series of reports provided by the universities and their travel agencies. Moreover, we mapped the travel destinations to understand the scope of Finnish academic travel. The data revealed that Finnish universities are in different states of sustainability: some acting as clear trendsetters and others lagging. The results show that although the universities are performing well in some areas, as in preferring European destinations over intercontinental ones, there are still areas of improvement related to stopover reduction, the number of 1- and 2-day trips, and alternative transport forms to aviation. There is also a need for the standardization of targets and emission calculators. These key development areas are posed as recommendations through which the universities could easily reduce the carbon footprint of their mobility.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 2948 |
Journal | Sustainability |
Volume | 13 |
Issue number | 5 |
Number of pages | 23 |
ISSN | 2071-1050 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 9 Mar 2021 |
MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Fields of Science
- 1172 Environmental sciences
- 1171 Geosciences
- corporate sustainability
- aviation emissions
- research organizations
- researcher mobility
- wicked problems
- sustainable academia
Activities
- 1 Supervisor or co-supervisor of doctoral thesis
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PhD dissertation supervisor of Veronica Ahonen
Petri Pellikka (Supervisor), Mikko Rask (Co-supervisor), Tino Johansson (Co-supervisor), Jari Liski (Member of thesis committee / follow-up group) & Tom Böhling (Member of thesis committee / follow-up group)
1 Jan 2020 → …Activity: Examination types › Supervisor or co-supervisor of doctoral thesis