Flying High But Flying Less An overview study of Dutch university policies to reduce carbon emissions from research related air travel

The flight behaviour of academics is being perceived more and more as problematic. While scientists are increasingly referring to climate change (see here, for example), academics are flying around the world more than ever for conferences, on-site research and fellowships. As a result, a sustainable science seems a distant prospect. The Young Academy has investigated how big the problem really is, what measures Dutch universities are taking to reduce emissions from flying, and how effective these actually are. In recent years, sustainability has made a significant advance in the policy documents of Dutch universities. Green offices have been established and policies to reduce CO2 emissions are developing rapidly. Substantial investments are being made, particularly in making real estate more sustainable. There is no lack of good intentions, as the Sustainable Development Goals of the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) show. Nevertheless, we are indicating that progress is still too
slow. According to the research, policymakers are experiencing a lack of resources and mandate. Particularly when it comes to mobility, the measures taken to date have been rather non-committal and therefore ineffective. Now that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought academic air travel almost to a standstill and there are lots of experiments going on with holding digital conferences, universities have an excellent opportunity to
change academic flight behaviour permanently. We are calling on universities to seize that opportunity. If we want to prevent things from becoming business as usual again after this pandemic, solid measures are
needed, because flying has become deeply rooted in academic culture over the past decades.