Air Miles

Air travel by academic staff is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions at GIUZ. Our aim is to quantify, address and reduce the amount of air travel at our department.

We are extremely delighted that our work has been honoured with the UZH Team Effort Award 2023!

Image: Ethan Welty
We are extremely delighted that our work has been honoured with the UZH Team Effort Award 2023!

Image: Ethan Welty

A collective effort to reduce flying in academia

Being recognised with the UZH Team Effort Award for our pioneering role in this area underlines the importance of continued focus on how to curb air travel-related emissions in research and academia. As a team, we are proud to be contributing to a low-flying future.

UZH Team Effort Award 2023

Christian Schwarzenegger, Vice President Faculty Affairs and Scientific Information, presented the Team Effort Award to the Airmiles Group of the UZH Department of Geography (GIUZ) for its initiative, which makes an important contribution to a more sustainable UZH. Ceremony as part of the Dies Academicus 2024, 27. April 2024, Campus Irchel.

Laudation

With the Team Effort Award, the University of Zurich honours the Air Miles Group of the Department of Geography (GIUZ) for its pioneering role in reducing flight-related emissions at UZH. Air travel accounts for a large proportion of UZH's greenhouse gas emissions. Since 2017, countless hours of voluntary work have been spent at the GIUZ collecting, analysing and publishing the flight data of employees and guests on an annual basis. In 2020, the Air Miles Group used this data to set reduction targets for the GIUZ and developed strategies to achieve them, as well as an advisory service for members of the department. The Air Miles Group thus raised awareness of an issue that is also very important from a university-wide perspective.

UZH Team Effort Award 2023

Dies Academicus 2024

Air Miles Timeline

Milestones in our air miles activities (GIUZ), those of the Faculty of Science (MNF) and the University of Zurich (UZH). Click on the hotspots to get more information.

How air miles monitoring is being done at GIUZ

Our reduction goal

Who we are

Our reports

The GIUZ Airmiles Report 2023

In 2023, total air travel at GIUZ remained almost the same as the year before, but lower than in pre-Covid years. Flight distances and emissions were almost exactly meeting the UZH target. The most frequent reasons for air travels were conferences / workshops and field trips / excursions.

More...

Scenarios for the future

How can we reach our air miles reduction goal? What do you think?

Can we already reach the target by avoiding short-distance flights in Europe?
Should we still fly to far-away destinations?
What about inviting fewer guests arriving by plane?
And which division at GIUZ has the best environmental footprint for air miles?

Have a look at the five scenarios in the slideshow below and find out!

Scenario 1: No ultra-long flights

We reach the reduction target by reducing ultra-long flights (> 10,000 km one-way) by 90%.
Scenario 2: Train rides instead of short flights

Trains are great, but they will not help us reach the reduction target. We still miss the target clearly by avoiding short flights to destinations that can be reached by train (<1,000 km).
Scenario 3: Visit European instead of non-European conferences

We miss the reduction target slightly by visiting only-European conferences instead of conferences on other continents. The number of conferences and the number of flights is assumed to remain constant.
Scenario 4: Fewer guests arriving by plane

If 90% of all guests at GIUZ arrived by other means of transport than by plane, we would reach the reduction target.
Scenario 5: Be like GIScience

Currently, the GIScience division has the fewest air miles of all research divisions at GIUZ. If all other divisions had a similar travel behaviour, we would easily reach the reduction target. In fact, travelling like GIScience 75% of the time would be enough.

We want to learn about your ideas and scenarios to reduce air miles at the GIUZ! See us in the Air Miles Monitoring group and join the discussion! Contact

Weiterführende Informationen

sustainability@geo.uzh.ch

… and we have reached our goals and reduced our flight emissions to less than 53% compared to 2018. What concrete steps did we undertake? What support did we receive? Did it influence our research?