Psychology for Climate is working to reduce the carbon footprint of the Department of Psychology, following the mandate of PSI's management. In the autumn of 2022, we undertook the task of mapping UiO's climate strategy and establishing connections with some stakeholders involved in this initiative. However, we encountered challenges in reducing the institute's own emissions, due to UiO being predominantly in the investigation and planning phase, with no designated climate budget. We are still working on finding the right people to talk to and getting a proper budget in place. As this work is time-consuming, it is important to implement measures in parallel. Below we describe measures within food and travel, and we want to work with electronic storage in the future.
Vegetarian food
In the autumn of 2022, we introduced vegetarian food as a standard option when ordering food for meetings and events organized by the institute. The impression is that this has worked well and has been well received, and we are working with the administration at PSI to put in place a survey and evaluation of the initiative.
Sustainable employee travel
We have carried out a survey of sustainable travel policy at PSI. Here we summarize the findings, a link to the entire survey can be found here (in Norwegian).
- Domestic work-related journeys among PSI employees in 2022 were relatively infrequent, with only a minority opting for air travel. However, there was a slightly higher proportion of work-related trips abroad and a greater number of these involved air travel.
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A majority of employees are unaware of UiO's green travel tips, and those who are aware do not consistently consider or prioritize them when booking work trips. It appears that the availability of alternatives to air travel for domestic trips is limited.
- Most employees express a desire to reduce their work-related flights. They consider reducing such flights as an important climate measure and believe it to be of significance for employees at PSI.
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The majority of employees consider the following climate measures appropriate:
- Facilitating train bookings through UiO's travel portal (81.8%)
- Promoting train travel as the standard option for shorter distances in Norway and Sweden (75%)
- Offering compensatory hours or days off when choosing train travel (65.9%)
- In the open comment field, several people highlight financial aspects of booking train journeys:
- That train travel is more expensive than air travel and that it should be taken from a different budget than the research budget, that compensation is given when booking night trains
- There is also a desire to improve the bicycle offer at PSI.
- Some mention that aspects such as whether one has children or career stage should be taken into account when considering sustainable travel options.