Sempre recognises the intrinsic value of researchers meeting together to share research at conferences, and more specifically, the value of doing so face-to-face. The current climate crisis, however, demands a response from every individual, and requires changes in behaviour and established practices to minimise the adverse effects of sharing research.

Accessibility should be maintained for those with disabilities who are unable to adapt to some of these changes; other changes will help facilitate equal access.

Sempre often provides Conference Awards to student and unwaged/low-income conference delegates to attend and give presentations at Sempre Conferences and Conferences in Association with Sempre. These awards will usually be for relatively local travel. Conference organisers are encouraged to make their conference available online in addition to any in-person arrangements to facilitate participation by more distant delegates.

Organisers of Sempre Conferences and Conferences in Association with Sempre are asked to consider the following:

Travel to the conference

Like many events, the largest environmental impact of conferences usually stems from delegates’ travel.

• Consider the location of your conference carefully. Can your chosen location be reached easily by public transport? Can the conference be located so that the most delegates can travel the least distance to attend? Would it be better for the organisers to find an alternative, more accessible venue, and/or provide alternative (remote) forms of engagement with the conference?
• Encourage delegates to travel on modes of transport with lower emissions (usually train, coach, car-sharing, and avoiding planes).¹
• Encourage delegates to combine their journey to the conference with other activities, e.g., a holiday, a visit to another nearby academic institution, location-based data gathering.
• Provide an easy link to delegates to encourage them to consider offsetting their travel emissions.²
• Consider the balance between the ‘pull’ of world-renowned keynote speakers with the likely carbon emissions generated from their travel.

Remote engagement

• Can the research presented at conferences be made available from a distance, either through a recorded podcast or similar, or through webcasting?
• Can research be presented remotely, using Skype, Facetime, or other video conferencing software (e.g. gotomeeting, gotowebinar, zoom, bluejeans, jitsi)?
• Sempre may be able to provide some financial support for this.
• Can keynote presentations be given remotely (either pre-recorded, or livecast)?
• Discussions, polling and QA sessions are highly valuable parts of the conference
  experience. Can organisers use online software to facilitate this (e.g., mentimeter, polleverywhere, slido, kahoot, socrative, glisser, pigeonhole)?
• Is there potential for using telepresence and/or immersive telepresence technologies (e.g., cisco)?

Multi-hub conferences

These have been undertaken by other organisations, and guidelines on running such events are available.³

Reducing the environmental impact during the conference

• Try to arrange for all conference events and accommodation to be within walking distance. Where this is not possible, highlight public transport links.
• Make all conference materials available digitally.
• Re-use materials (pens, notebooks, badges, bags, etc.) from previous conferences where possible. Consider whether such freebies will be used beyond the life of the conference before purchasing them.
• Avoid single use plastics where possible.
• Where possible, try to use locally sourced materials.
• Where possible, try to use caterers who use locally sourced ingredients, or, where in-house caterers are used, ask whether ingredients are locally-sourced. Where possible, consider increasing the proportion of plant-based foods in relation to animal-based foods. Try to minimise food waste – are there practical ways in which this can be done locally?⁴
• Use a carbon calculator when organising your event.⁵

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1. See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49349566.
2. See https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2019/aug/02/offsetting-carbon-emissions-how-to-travel-options, which includes eight possible offsetting links at the end of the article.
3. See https://static.uni-graz.at/fileadmin/veranstaltungen/music-psychology-conference2018/documents/Semi_Virtual_Conference_Guidelines.pdf
4. E.g. https://olioex.com
5. E.g. https://co2.myclimate.org/en/event_calculators/new