(Press-News.org) New research from The University of Manchester has identified various ways in which UK higher education institutions are beginning to tackle emissions associated with business travel and catering. These are two substantial contributors to emissions in this sector, and difficult to decarbonise. The findings suggest need for further sector-wide efforts to tackle the planet's most pressing issue.
This new study, from The University of Manchester's Tyndall Centre for Climate Change and the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations (CAST), analysed publicly available policies of 66 UK universities to identify strategies related to long-distance business travel and catering. For each university, documents including Carbon Management Plans and Annual Reports, Travel Plans and Sustainable Food Policies were downloaded, catalogued and reviewed.
Long-distance business travel and catering (particularly meat-based meals) are substantial contributors to the carbon footprint of universities (and many other organisations), but are typically under-accounted for in carbon management planning. The collaborative research team set-out to understand the extent to which university plans and actions in these areas are commensurate with climate emergency declarations, and make recommendations to support setting sufficiently ambitious targets and actions.
The research, published today in Climate Policy, demonstrates that action on climate change in universities is extending beyond the familiar focus on energy related emissions to engage in more complex workplace practices, including long-distance business travel and catering. However, increasing sector-wide effort is unavoidable if universities are to fulfil their climate emergency declarations and align emissions reduction strategies with the UK Government's net zero ambitions.
Lead author on the research paper Professor Claire Hoolohan, The University of Manchester said: "Many universities omit, or only partially account for, business travel and food within their carbon management reporting. However, the importance of emissions in these areas is widely recognised and there is evidence of pioneer institutions setting targets and taking action to reduce emissions in these areas.
"Across the sector more action is required to reduce emissions. To support sector-wide action, this briefing note focusses on targets and actions that should be implemented to rapidly and substantially reduce emissions in these two areas, and contribute towards a low-carbon workplace culture."
The UK's Committee on Climate Change recognises aviation and agriculture as sectors where it is very challenging to reduce emissions. Mobility scholars have shown that aeromobility is deeply embedded in the institutional culture of Higher Education, with individual career progression and institutional standing linked to international mobility.
Similarly, for meat-eating, coordinated developments across production-consumption systems sustain meat-heavy diets, and this is no less true in workplace cafeterias and catering. Subsequently, reducing emissions requires the reconfiguration of professional practices and institutional policies to enable low-carbon transformation.
The research finds many universities planning to reduce emissions in these areas, but few have robust targets to support decarbonisation. Further it is action, not plans or targets, that reduce emissions and few universities have actions in place to reduce emissions across both areas.
That said, there were examples of good practice in both areas, and future action could focus on the following:
Positive actions on flying and food for Universities.
Review and define 'essential travel' to support staff in avoiding travel as much as possible.
Maximise the number of engagements per trip, reduce the distance and frequency.
Make train travel the default for journeys within a specified distance, with additional time and funding for long distance rail travel
Focus on reducing trips of frequent fliers and recognise the differentiated travel needs of staff with children, care commitments and medical needs.
Review University policies for contradictions that encourage flying
Reduce meat, and replace with plant-based alternatives
Make plant-based event catering the default to spark conversation and enable staff to try new meals.
Experiment at sub-organisation level, then share learning and scale up
Professor Alice Larkin, Head of Engineering at The University of Manchester, said: "Higher education's response to the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that rapid, deep and widespread changes are possible. The shifts in our academic activities that we've all experienced, as well as changes to how we've started to operate in new ways, present significant opportunities to establish alternative, more sustainable, practices."
INFORMATION:
Red ginseng, which has long been used as an ingredient in traditional Korean medicine, has recently drawn increased attention as a functional material for its health-promoting effects. The composition and activities of red ginseng vary depending on the processing method, and this has become an active area of research. Recently, a research team in Korea has entered the spotlight as they discovered that red ginseng has inhibitory effects against lung cancer metastasis.
The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) reported that a joint study conducted by Dr. Jungyeob Ham from the Natural Product Research Center at the KIST Gangneung Institute of Natural Products and Dr. Hyeonseok Ko of Seoul Asan Medical Center revealed that two components of red ginseng, ...
Researchers from the University of Texas, University of Chicago, University of Notre Dame, and London School of Economics published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that examines whether entrepreneurs in emerging markets can benefit from marketers' help.
The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled "Do Marketers Matter for Entrepreneurs? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Uganda" and is authored by Stephen Anderson, Pradeep Chintagunta, Frank Germann, and Naufel Vilcassim.
Can marketers help improve the world? While this question may seem vast and unknowable, this new study proposes ...
BINGHAMTON, NY -- Customized diets and lifestyle changes could be key to optimizing mental health, according to new research including faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York.
"There is increasing evidence that diet plays a major role in improving mental health, but everyone is talking about a healthy diet," said Begdache, an assistant professor of health and wellness studies at Binghamton University and co-author of a new paper in Nutrients.
"We need to consider a spectrum of dietary and lifestyle changes based on different age groups and gender," she said. "There is not one healthy diet that will work for everyone. There is not one fix."
Begdache, who is also a registered dietitian, believes that ...
Home health visits change to virtual ones during pandemic
'We don't have to rely on mental health professionals'
As perinatal depression soars during pandemic, there's a growing need for treatment
CHICAGO --- Perinatal depression has soared during the pandemic. But many mental health professionals are overwhelmed and can't take on new clients.
Good news comes from a new Northwestern Medicine study finding paraprofessionals generated similar reductions in depressive symptoms as mental health professionals when delivering a group-based cognitive-behavioral therapy intervention.
The study findings are based on ...
New research has revealed that the diets of early lizards and snakes, which lived alongside dinosaurs around 100 million years ago, were more varied and advanced than previously thought.
The study, led by the University of Bristol and published in Royal Society Open Science, showed lizards, snakes, and mosasaurs in the Cretaceous period already had the full spectrum of diet types, including flesh-eating and plant-based, which they have today.
There are currently some 10,000 species of lizards and snakes, known collectively as squamates. It was originally understood their great diversity was acquired only after the extinction ...
Patients with type 2 diabetes that were treated with a weekly injection of the breakthrough drug Semaglutide were able to achieve an average weight loss of nearly 10kg, according to a new study published in The Lancet today.
Led by Melanie Davies, Professor of Diabetes Medicine at the University of Leicester and the Co-Director of the Leicester Diabetes Centre, the study showed that two thirds of patients with type 2 diabetes that were treated with weekly injections of a 2.4mg dose of Semaglutide were able to lose at least 5% of their body weight and achieved significant improvement in blood glucose control.
More than a quarter of patients were able to ...
Pregnant patients in Colorado may be told about parenting and adoption, but not abortion. This is according to a new study led by Kate Coleman-Minahan of the University of Colorado College of Nursing published in the END ...
Our brains are non-stop consumers. A labyrinth of blood vessels, stacked end-to-end comparable in length to the distance from San Diego to Berkeley, ensures a continuous flow of oxygen and sugar to keep our brains functioning at peak levels.
But how does this intricate system ensure that more active parts of the brain receive enough nourishment versus less demanding areas? That's a century-old problem in neuroscience that scientists at the University of California San Diego have helped answer in a newly published study.
Studying the brains of mice, a team of researchers led by Xiang Ji, David Kleinfeld and their colleagues has deciphered the question of brain energy consumption and blood vessel density through newly developed maps that detail ...
When you think about your carbon footprint, what comes to mind? Driving and flying, probably. Perhaps home energy consumption or those daily Amazon deliveries. But what about watching Netflix or having Zoom meetings? Ever thought about the carbon footprint of the silicon chips inside your phone, smartwatch or the countless other devices inside your home?
Every aspect of modern computing, from the smallest chip to the largest data center comes with a carbon price tag. For the better part of a century, the tech industry and the field of computation ...
Imagine you're driving up a hill toward a traffic light. The light is still green so you're tempted to accelerate to make it through the intersection before the light changes. Then, a device in your car receives a signal from the controller mounted on the intersection alerting you that the light will change in two seconds -- clearly not enough time to beat the light. You take your foot off the gas pedal and decelerate, saving on fuel. You feel safer, too, knowing you didn't run a red light and potentially cause a collision in the intersection.
Connected and automated vehicles, which can interact vehicle to vehicle (V2V) and between vehicles and roadway ...
