Environmental sustainability in basic research: a perspective from HECAP+
Published in ArXiv, 2023
Title: Environmental sustainability in basic research: a perspective from HECAP+
Authors: Sustainable HECAP+ Initiative: Shankha Banerjee, Thomas Y. Chen, Claire David, Michael Düren, Harold Erbin, Jacopo Ghiglieri, Mandeep S. S. Gill, L Glaser, Christian Gütschow, Jack Joseph Hall, Johannes Hampp, Patrick Koppenburg, Matthias Koschnitzke, Kristin Lohwasser, Rakhi Mahbubani, Viraf Mehta, Peter Millington, Ayan Paul, Frauke Poblotzki, Karolos Potamianos, Nikolina Šarčević, Rajeev Singh, Hannah Wakeling, Rodney Walker, Matthijs van der Wild, Pia Zurita
Abstract: The climate crisis and the degradation of the world’s ecosystems require humanity to take immediate action. The international scientific community has a responsibility to limit the negative environmental impacts of basic research. The HECAP+ communities (High Energy Physics, Cosmology, Astroparticle Physics, and Hadron and Nuclear Physics) make use of common and similar experimental infrastructure, such as accelerators and observatories, and rely similarly on the processing of big data. Our communities therefore face similar challenges to improving the sustainability of our research. This document aims to reflect on the environmental impacts of our work practices and research infrastructure, to highlight best practice, to make recommendations for positive changes, and to identify the opportunities and challenges that such changes present for wider aspects of social responsibility.