Travel blog: Trial, error, and emissions reductions: learning from ‘sustainable’ travel approaches across UK universities

By Lydia Cole (Lecturer, School of Geography and Sustainable Development) and Nora Booth (Student, Geography and International Relations).

Published on: 9 October 2024.

In Semester 2 of 2024, the then third year International Relations and Geography student, Nora Booth, took a deep dive into sustainable travel approaches across the UK’s universities. The project idea was developed by Dr Lydia Cole, Lecturer in the School of Geography and Sustainable Development (SGSD), and Chair of the Environmental Sustainability Policy Working Group within the School. SGSD has been hosting conversations about and exploring options for lower-carbon international business travel (e.g., teaching and research-related travel) since early 2021for the last four years. How do academics reduce their carbon footprint whilst maintaining impactful research collaborations with colleagues and communities who may be on the other side of the world? Where can student fieldtrips go for an experience that is weather-proof, conducive to achieving learning outcomes and also attractive to incoming students? And how can individuals afford to replace flights with trains when the latter is often so much more expensive? These are all challenging questions for which there are not yet conclusive answers.

Nora set out to investigate whether other universities have found solutions, or in the least, are trialling ‘sustainable’ travel policies from which we, at St Andrews, can learn and inform our own. She meticulously scoured the online information and published travel policies available from the Universities of Exeter, Bangor, East Anglia, Oxford and Cambridge. Nora’s research also included consultingthe Business Travel Guide for Further and Higher Education produced by the Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges (EAUC). The aforementioned universities were selected because of shared characteristics with the University of St Andrews such as their similarly remote locations or relative age (degree of ancientness!), respectively. The objective of this research project was to situate the future sustainable travel solutions at the University of St Andrews amongst its peers; creating a nuanced and localized set of recommendations to help to meet the Net Zero by 2035 institutional commitment.

After reviewing and summarising the approaches, successes and failures of other similar universities, Nora concluded the report with three key next steps (Fig. 1) that St Andrews could take towards reducing the carbon emissions associated with international business travel at the University:

• Promote transparency and communication – Making sustainable travel policies more accessible and transparent for students and staff to contribute ideas, discuss different options and collaborate on the design a workable policy could lead to the development of a more effective framework for international travel that can be built on. Improving the collection and distribution of data across all departments would also assist the University in isolating key areas for intervention. The existing information available regarding sustainable business travel is limited to mechanisms of support and total CO2e emissions.

• Expand options for staff members – Drawing on policies introduced by the University of Oxford, the expansion of travel options for staff members is paramount to engaging in a comprehensive overhaul of business travel. Principally, the diversion of funds from high-carbon, difficult-to-decarbonise methods (flying) to more sustainable means (i.e., rail, bus). It is necessary to adopt a nuanced view of this change. The University is geographically isolated from mainland Europe, with significant rail travel time investment required to reach mainland Europe. However, if institutional change reflects the added time to commute to these locations then staff will have increased capability to make sustainable travel choices. The introduction of a Sustainable Travel Fund would increase the opportunities for staff to utilise more sustainable means of travel while on University business. Subsidizing sustainable methods of travel and transport is paramount to changing the travel behaviours of staff. Expansion of options would also entail investing in virtual and digital infrastructure to ensure connectedness for staff to participate in career-building activities without travelling.

• Manage expectations and promote behaviour change at an institutional level – It is pertinent to engage in institutional overhaul to instigate true change regarding sustainable business travel. As it exists, the sustainability opportunities at the University function on an ‘opt-in’ in basis which is largely decentralized and voluntary. These policies may drive changes on an individual level but they fail to target the institution as a whole. The leadership of these institutions can and should be expected to deliver changes in frameworks for assessing success at the university. A concrete step that could be instituted at the University is the establishment of departmental carbon budgets for each department where a cost code could be allocated for each business travel booking. By instituting a carbon budget for each department, the University can empower departments to develop their own carbon reduction solutions and strategies while personalizing more sustainable methods of travel. This step would incentivize those interested in business travel to adopt more sustainable means and an expansion of virtual opportunities. Further, the establishment of an institutional surcharge levied on high-emission transport when it is avoidable, could pay for sustainable business travel initiatives and encourage each department to minimize high-carbon transport to avoid monetary losses.

There are options for sustainable business travel, as Nora has identified, and other universities are working through the trial-and-error journey inevitable when developing appropriate and feasible ‘sustainable’ (or perhaps more responsible is a better phrasing!) solutions particular to each institution. We look forward to getting involved in the same journey at St Andrews.

If you would like a copy of the full project report and/or have any comments on this blog post, please email Lydia Cole ([email protected]). Link to full report: Trial Error and Emissions Reductions Report – Nora Booth – June 2024 – Final.pdf.

Photo: Students enjoying* a wonderful week in the Cairngorms in March, 2022, as part of the Honours-level Physical Geography Fieldcourse. No flights were involved in this fieldtrip. *Evidence documented in Module Evaluation Questionnaires (MEQs).