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Will you join the MSSL Green Impact Team in pledging to go flight-free within Great Britain and to nearby Eurostar destinations (Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam)?
The Green Impact team are pledging to go flight-free within Great Britain and to nearby Eurostar destinations (Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam) in the coming year. Following in the steps of UCL Division of Psychology and Language Sciences (PALS), the Space and Climate Physics Green Impact team are promoting a “Try Not to Fly GB+” pledge for the Green Impact team and wider department.
Sign the “Try Not to Fly GB+” pledge now!
This pledge aims to minimise work-related air travel within Great Britain and to nearby Eurostar destinations as an impactful step to reduce our carbon emissions as a department. This pledge concerns travel funded by the Department for its staff and students for work-related activity. Instead, travel by rail or other sustainable means is encouraged. For destinations only reasonably reached by air travel, we encourage the promotion and uptake of virtual conferencing.
This pledge is in keeping with UCL’s Travel Policy, which states that UCL staff and students should “select the most carbon-efficient way of reaching your destination”, even if it is not the cheapest. It also ties in with UCL’s Grand Challenge for the climate crisis.
This pledge is aligned to UCL's existing sustainability work with Clarity, which now provides prompts to staff booking travel within Great Britain and to close European destinations. This will notify you that internal flights are not within UCL travel guidelines and will identify European cities that are connected by high-speed rail and are under 6 hours travel from London. All rail travel can be booked through UCL's Clarity Travel Portal including Eurostar trains, making it easier to travel sustainably.
We are aware of the additional pressures that PhD students and Early Career Researchers may experience to build their network and profiles. To promote fairness in emissions reductions, we strongly encourage senior researchers and frequent flyers to be champions of this pledge.
Why sign the pledge?
In 2024, a single passenger travelling on a domestic flight had the largest carbon footprint, at 273 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilometre, compared to only 40 g CO₂e per km by train. (UK: travel carbon footprint by transport mode 2024| Statista)
"Universities are leading institutions in research on climate change and often have ambitions to decrease their carbon footprint and become more sustainable themselves. We can set an example in making conscious travel choices, and choose not to travel by plane when this is not absolutely necessary" (Why universities? – ExPlane).
“Researchers, set an example: fly less” (Xavier Anglaret et al., 2019, The Conversation)
“As an academic, should I worry about my conference carbon footprint?” (Sophia Kier-Byfield, 2019, The Guardian)