Here are some general tips to guide you:
Look for opportunities to avoid University-related travel. Actively identify events where you could benefit from the activity using virtual and online means of attendance and communication.
Make use of online programming and technologies. Conferences and events often host at least some programming online. Contact event organizers to inquire about virtual options. Video-conferencing and other tools can help replace a portion of meetings and other events requiring travel.
Consider how many people need to attend the event. Reducing the number of people who are traveling can often reduce the travel footprint, especially for air travel. If fewer people are attending, create processes to share knowledge and research.
Combine multiple trips. If you often travel between the same locations, or have events and meetings in the same region, take action in advance and plan to combine trips, especially for air travel.
Collaborate with local networks. Consider “hub-and-node” event design – local events held in tandem with a larger central event – and reach out to your local networks.
Fill out expense reports in a bit more detail. To calculate the University’s annual emissions, we currently rely on expense reports for air travel data. Take a few moments to fill these out clearly, especially for trips with flights. Include all destinations visited for multi-leg journeys in the “Destination” field, and indicate the airport as well (e.g. “Montréal to NYC (JFK) to Santiago (SCL) to Los Angeles (LAX) to Montréal (YUL)”).