AASHE Campus Sustainability Hub

Scholars and their institutions contribute significantly to global warming by flying to conferences. An intercontinental return flight in economy class can be compared with burning a ton of fossil carbon (producing 3.7 tons of CO2), driving a car for a year, or eating meat for 5 years (1 kg per week producing 13 kg CO2 per week). The International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC) happens every two years in different world locations. Every six years it is combined with the triennial conference of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM). Typically, 400 colleagues travel to ICMPC/ESCOM, mostly by air. The 2018 conference (23-28 July) was organized by the applicant at the University of Graz, Austria. By distributing the conference across four hubs (Graz, La Plata Argentina, Montreal, Sydney), carbon emissions per participant were reduced by 70% relative to a comparable single-location conference (documented in collaboration with Wegener Centre for Climate and Global Change, Graz). Most presentations were live-streamed (using OBS software) to an internet cloud (YouTube, unlisted) and viewed at one or more other hubs, either in real time or as a video. Two-way software (Zoom) was used for discussions. Content was accessible only to registered participants (who found the URLs in Moodle software). On every day at every hub, there was a morning session for real-time communication toward the East and an evening session for the West. There was a 24-hour global program and a separate local program for each hub. The multi-hub, semi-virtual format is suitable for any conference in any academic discipline. It could significantly and sustainably reduce carbon emissions of universities worldwide. It will send an important signal to industry (whose conferences are equally problematic). The conference indirectly improved awareness of climate issues in the general public: every participant was an academic with a large network of colleagues and students.

The author became president of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM), whose duties normally include organizing a triennial European conference, which in this case would be combined with the biennial International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC). The question arose as to whether it is ethically acceptable to invite and encourage hundreds of colleagues to fly long distances. Different possible solutions were discussed. The semi-virtual, multi-hub approach was chosen because it not only drastically reduces emissions but also increases the accessibility of the conference, independent of income. In that way, it also increases the cultural diversity of participants.

1. Halve carbon emissions per participant. (In fact, they were reduced by 70%).
2. Reduce costs to enable more colleagues to participate, independently of their financial means (especially in non-rich countries).
3. Increase the cultural diversity of the participants.
4. Improve documentation of academic content and academic exchange by making video recordings of all presentations available to all registered participants.
5. Compensate for loss of face-to-face content by facilitating real-time video communication across time zones during breaks ("global foyer").

The conference was organized in the usual way, with a call for papers, peer review procedure, and so on, as documented on the conference homepage (https://music-psychology-conference2018.uni-graz.at/en/). Participants whose submissions were accepted had a choice between four global locations; most (not all) traveled to the closest one. Each hub had its own organizing committee including technicians to ensure the success of the live streams (unlisted YouTube) and 2-way discussions (Zoom).

The project took three years altogether. Selected milestones: July 2015: Parncutt becomes president of ESCOM April 2016: Application describing low-carbon conference format to ICMPC committee December 2016: Acceptance of revised application November 2017: Abstract submission deadline March 2018: Abstract acceptance notification April 2018: Registration opens at each hub April 2018: Early registration deadline June 2018: Deadline for revised abstracts and proceedings contributions June 2018: Publication of preliminary program; late registration deadline 23-28 July 2018: The conference

There were four conference hubs and each had its own budget. Participants paid their registration fees direct to their hub. The Graz hub was the largest and the total budget in Graz was approximately 98,000 Euros. We received 7600 Euros from the Province of Styria (of which Graz is the capital) and 6000 Euros from the University of Graz (of which 3000 from the Faculty of Humanities and 3000 from the Vice-Rector for Research). Most other income was from registration fees. The main costs were for staff wages, for example to run the peer-review procedure. Technicians received additional short-term contracts and hospitality staff were student volunteers. There were the usual expenses for room hire and for food and refreshments.

By distributing the conference across four hubs (Graz, La Plata Argentina, Montreal, Sydney), carbon emissions per participant were reduced by 70% relative to a comparable single-location conference (as documented in collaboration with Wegener Centre for Climate and Global Change, Graz). The number of registered participants (mainly active) was 789 from 54 countries, by comparison to 500/32 at ICMPC14 (San Francisco, USA, 2016) and 410/39 at ICMPC12/ESCOM8 (Thessaloniki, Greece, 2012). The hub in Argentina enabled many South Americans to participate who otherwise would not have been able to afford the total cost of registration, travel, and accommodation; in future we wish to include colleagues from other regions such as for example India and China by adding hubs. No presentations were canceled for technical reasons, and delays were few and lasted no more than a few minutes. Most participants at all hubs participated an on-line survey toward the end of the conference; 60% approved of the new format.

We learned that the semi-virtual, multi-location conference conference format actually works. It is practically feasible for a conference organizer in any academic discipline, university, or country. The additional technology means extra work and extra staff, but the time involved was much less than other aspects of conference administration (in particular the review procedure). Moreover, the technical workload will be reduced for colleagues who use and adapt our technical guidelines and take advantage of our expertise and experience in future. The advantage of having all talks documented and welcoming participants from new geographic regions clearly outweighed the additional cost of running the new technology, even without considering emissions reductions. Registration fees in rich countries (Austria, Canada, Australia) were about the same as previous comparable conferences. The registration fee in Argentina was much lower, enabling colleagues from all over South America to participate. We learned that academic colleagues are open to this kind of innovation. Of course there is resistance: most of us enjoy traveling to diverse or exotic locations for conferences, and face-to-face communication will always play an important role in academic creativity. But we found that academic colleagues are also open to counter-arguments concerning inclusion of colleagues with lower financial resources, cultural diversity, video documentation of conference presentations, and expected future technological improvements in remote communication. Most colleagues can accept that the new format is academically advantageous -- even without considering emissions reductions. We are confident that conferences of this kind will become more common in the future, and look forward to offering technical and logistic support to any colleague in any discipline, country or university who is planning such an event.

• Richard Parncutt | University of Graz

• Link: Conference Webpage