"Flight shame" is on everyone's lips in 2019, and the scientific community is also increasingly discussing the effects of its activities on the global climate. Can air travel to conferences still be justified in view of the pollutant emissions? They are contrasted by (even "accidental") knowledge spillovers, such as personal face-to-face contacts at conferences, which cannot easily be replaced by telecommunications despite advances in digital technologies.
Fabian Wenner, research associate at the Department of Spatial Development, together with Freke Caset and Bart de Wit from the University of Ghent, has published an essay on this subject, which compiles and weighs up the pros and cons and makes its own suggestions for a sustainable conference system.
The paper has been published in DiSP - The Planning Review (Vol. 55(1), p. 34-51) - a summary has been published on the blog of the "Young Academics" of the "Association of European Schools of Planning".