2022 ESIL Annual Conference, Utrecht

Sustainability

Utrecht University promotes sustainable travel behaviour for work-related trips such as conferences. For example, the university has developed a train zone map, where employees and visitors to the university can check whether taking the train is a good alternative to flying. In addition, the university has developed a travel check, where employees and visitors can go through a decision tree and critically examine whether it is really necessary to travel, and if they do travel, whether the sustainable travel option is among the possibilities.

Furthermore, the university is investing heavily in IT facilities to enable hybrid working and the live streaming of events and conferences. In 2020, because of the corona pandemic, there was plenty of experimentation with online conferences. The lessons learned from this will be taken on board and applied, also now that visiting conferences in person is possible again. In 2021, a toolkit for online conferences was created for university staff, giving them the right tools to organise digital or hybrid conferences. Moreover, no merchandising will be distributed and all catering at the ESIL conference will be vegetarian.