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Trains back on track Photo: SHUTTERSTOCK
Two departments are at the forefront in the work on climate change: the Department of Conservation and the School of Public Administration. These departments allow you to take a maximum of two flights a year, and flights under 1,000 km are more or less not permitted. Travel within Europe should preferably be undertaken by train. BOTH DEPARTMENTS have updated their environmental and sustainability plans with stricter requirements for air travel. The goal is to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions from business travel. The objective is that as an employee, you can make a maximum of two round trips per year. Before booking a business trip, you should carefully consider whether a digital meeting would suffice. At the Department of Conservation, Researcher Staffan Lundén has led the work of the department's environmental group in developing a new travel and meetings policy, which in several respects entails dramatic restrictions compared to the University of Gothenburg's goals. – Ultimately, it is about helping to save the planet from total collapse, and what little we can do here and now will
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hopefully be important for future generations. Everything else seems meaningless otherwise. As Greta Thunberg says, it is about listening to the researchers. It's bad when not even the researchers do that, Staffan Lundén points out. When it was time to update the policy, they chose to aim higher than the University of Gothenburg's central goals.
Staffan Lundén says that the policy has been discussed at several workplace meetings and that the staff have been overwhelmingly positive. Personally, he does not think the measures are particularly dramatic.
– IT IS IMPORTANT that a
policy does not become too ambiguous and flexible, but it must also not be too rigid and strict. Flying to Stockholm is not permitted, and trips under 1,000 km require written permission from the head of department. The purpose is to do away with unnecessary travel, says Staffan Lundén He hopes that the policy will be an important planning tool for determining which conferences you can participate in and where you can choose to arrange conferences, based on how accessible the place is by train. For example, for a European network, Munich may be preferable to Sicily or Gothenburg as a meeting place.
– FIRST AND FOREMOST, you should try to replace travel with digital meetings. Secondly, investigate the possibility of travelling by train and thirdly taking a flight. What the pandemic has taught us is
As Greta Thunberg says, it is about listening to the researchers. It's bad when not even the researchers do that. STAFFAN LUNDÉN
that a lot can be accomplished digitally. I myself have participated in several conferences digitally and it has saved a lot of time. Instead of flying, staff are encouraged to take the train. As compensation, it should be possible to book first class and, when required, get paid for an extra hotel night or sleeping car in first class. But the policy also covers short trips within the city. Therefore, the department has purchased Västtrafik cards, Styr & Ställ cards and bicycle helmets.
THE PRINCIPLE is that it should be easy to make decisions about how business trips and meetings should be conducted. One point of the policy is that it is not overly controlling but is based on everyone taking responsibility. – We have borrowed some formulations from SLU, chiefly regarding the so-called decision ladder. It means that you have to think about whether it is even necessary to participate, based on your working hours and the department's resources. The idea is also that students and guest researchers coming to the university should take the train, if possible. Despite the fact that it will be both more expensive and more complicated to book train trips, Staffan Lundén highlights the benefits of travelling. – We need time to recuperate and maybe in the long run we will not be more efficient by rushing around and taking flights. Of course, it is absurd that the train is
