Does flying less harm academic work? Arguments and assumptions about reducing air travel in academia

Abstract

The climate impact of air travel is increasingly being acknowledged and problematized. As work in the academic sector often involves frequent long-distance travel, this development calls into question academic practices and is causing academics and academic institutions to reconsider, debate, and adapt their travel behavior and policies. This paper discusses a case study at ETH Zurich, one of the first universities with an ongoing, university-wide project to reduce greenhouse gas emissions due to air travel by faculty, staff, and students. Based on a qualitative analysis of interviews (N = 15), a survey (N = 176), and other data sources, I outline arguments for and against reducing air travel. I focus on assumed causal relations between air travel and doing ‘good’ academic work. The results reveal that the participants expected reduced air travel to affect their productivity, success, excellence, internationality, quality of research, teaching, visibility and presence, role modelling, consistency, freedom, and the humanitarian impact of their research. While the dominant assumption was that reducing air travel would harm science, this study reveals alternative assumptions that science would benefit or remain unaffected. Results also show that the debate on reducing air travel may encourage transformations in the organization of academia. Drawing on the experience of the air travel project at ETH Zurich may help other institutions and individuals initiate or advance discussions on the ethics, necessity, and future of academic air travel while acknowledging the diversity of viewpoints on air travel reduction as well as its deep implications for academia.