Purchases dominate the carbon footprint of research laboratories

Abstract

Despite increasing interest for the carbon footprint of higher education institutions, little is known about the carbon footprint associated to research activities. Air travel and attendance to conferences concentrate recent data and debates but purchases have attracted little attention. Here we develop a hybrid method to estimate the greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) associated to research purchases. To do so, we combine macroe-conomic databases, research-centered companies footprints and life-cycle assesments to construct a public database of monetary emission factors (EF) for research purchases. We apply it to estimate the purchases emissions of a hundred of research laboratories in France, belonging to the Labos 1point5 network and gathering more than 20000 staff, from all disciplines. We find that purchases dominate laboratory emissions, accounting for more than 50% of emissions, with a median of 2.7 t CO2e/pers, which is 3 to 4-fold the separate contribution from travel, commutes and heating. Median electricity emissions are 5-fold lower in our dataset of laboratories using low carbon electricity but they become preponderant for high carbon electricity mixes (3.5 t CO2e/pers). Purchases emissions are very heterogeneous among laboratories and are linearly correlated with budget, with an average carbon intensity of 0.31 {+/-} 0.07 kg CO2e/{euro} and differences between research domains. Finally, we quantify the effect of a series of demand-driven mitigation strategies obtaining up to -20 % in total emissions (-40 % in purchases emissions), suggesting that effectively reducing the carbon footprint of research activities calls for systemic changes. Significance statementResearch activities are recently interrogating their contribution to global warming, mainly through the impact of air travel but neglecting the emissions embodied in scientific purchases. However, goods and services used in a research laboratory emit greenhouse gases when they are produced. Here we construct a public and robust database of emission factors to quantify purchases emissions in a laboratory and we use it to assess emissions from a hundred of laboratories in France, from all disciplines. We find that purchases emissions represent half of the of the 6.3 t CO2e/pers per year emitted on average per laboratory. Emissions, however, vary greatly between laboratories and disciplines and an analysis of mitigation strategies shows that decreasing demand may significantly reduce purchases emissions.