Financial and Greenhouse Gas Impacts of Conferencing and Virtual Meetings in UK Universities
Abstract
This report estimates the financial and greenhouse gas impacts of conferencing and other virtual meetings at nine UK universities and for the whole HE sector. As there are many uncertainties, it uses three scenarios – actual survey responses, conservative and very conservative - based on differing assumptions about key variables such as the reliability of responses, and how many virtual meetings, and what number of participants, actually avoid travel in practice. We consider the conservative and very conservative scenarios to be the most reliable, and the conservative scenario figures to be the most appropriate when discussing virtual meeting use in institutions or the sector as a whole. The financial benefits of avoided travel and subsistence costs, and freed up productive time, are estimated for: • A single virtual meeting: between £106-257 (average £175) in the nine universities in the conservative case, and £48-78 (average £62) in the very conservative case. • A single member of academic staff: between £199-613 (average £366) annually in the conservative case, and £86-199 (average £130) in the very conservative case. • Each of the nine universities: between £151,800-£1,609,000 (average £553,000) annually in the conservative case, and £72,300-£523,300 (average £197,700) in the very conservative case. • The UK higher education sector as a whole: £66 million annually in the conservative case, and £23 million in the very conservative case. The net (i.e. after taking account of the emissions from IT equipment and ‘rebound’ effects) annual avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions (expressed as CO2 equivalent) is estimated for: • A single virtual meeting: between 12-55 kg of CO2eq emissions (average 24) in the nine universities in the conservative case, and 4–18 (average 9) in the very conservative case. • A single member of academic staff: between 15-167 kg of CO2eq emissions (average 56) annually in the conservative case, and 6-54 (average 20) in the very conservative case. • Each of the nine universities: between19-438 tonnes of CO2eq emissions (average 97) annually for the conservative case, and 7-143 (average 34) in the very conservative case. • The UK higher education sector as a whole: 10,253 tonnes of CO2eq emissions annually in the conservative case, and 3.647 in the very conservative case. Hence, there is a strong business and environmental case for encouraging greater use of virtual meetings within higher education and, by extension, further education. However, one point to note is that the environmental case is focused on air travel in general, and long haul air in particular, whereas these modes will often be much less central to the business case, where the greatest benefits can arise from reducing peak fare rail journeys and inter-campus travelSimilar works
This paper was published in Jisc Repository.
Having an issue?
Is data on this page outdated, violates copyrights or anything else? Report the problem now and we will take corresponding actions after reviewing your request.