How green is your research? These scientists are cutting their carbon footprints
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00837-0
Author: Myriam Vidal Valero
Michael Inouye, a computational biologist at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia, has always worried about the carbon emissions that his research was generating. But it was the unprecedented wildfires in Australia in 2019 and 2020, which were made more likely by climate change and shut down his laboratory, that pushed him to take action. In 2020, he began collaborating with two PhD students to measure the carbon emissions of their computational research. The project created Green Algorithms, a free online calculator that allows users to estimate the carbon footprint of their research projects, in a bid to ultimately reduce emissions. Inouye has been using the calculator since it launched, but last year he took things a step further. After calculating the emissions of one of his team’s projects1 on human genetics and diet, his group planted 30 trees to counter its emissions. Inouye knows that offsetting practices are controversial. Critics of the practice argue that if the trees are not properly monitored, there is no guarantee that they will still be alive the following year, for example. “But I think, it’s better to do something than nothing,” he says. He is not alone. As the impacts of climate change grow, researchers from fields spanning astronomy to biology have been working to understand and address the sources of their emissions. But solutions don’t come without obstacles.