Den akuta klimatkrisen kräver handling från alla aktörer i samhället, inklusive universiteten. KTH har förbundit sig till ambitiösa klimatmål som stödjer Parisavtalet och har som mål att bli utsläppsneutrala 2045. Eftersom tjänsteresor, särskilt flyg, är den största källan till utsläpp på KTH är ett centralt fokus i denna strategi att minska koldioxidutsläppen från tjänsteresor med flyg. För att åstadkomma en sådan förändring initierades under 2023 ett pilotprojekt för att undersöka hur implementeringen av en koldioxidbudget på KTH skulle kunna stödja organisationen i att nå dessa mål.

Genom tre workshops tillsammans med en avdelning på ABE-skolan kom pilotprojektet fram till flera insikter som beskrivs i en rapport (se Biørn-Hansen och Nilsson, 2023), där de viktigaste resultaten poängterade i) hur viktigt det är med transparens i vem som reser vart och när, ii) vikten av att fördela resandet jämt mellan anställda, och iii) nyttan med att inrätta buffertar för att hantera oväntade händelser och variationer i utsläpp. Rapporten presenterar också ett förslag på hur man kan arbeta med en koldioxidbudget i verksamheten, där fokus ligger på att ge avdelningar mandat till att själva planera, genomföra och följa upp budgeten på lokal nivå.

Under hösten 2024 har vi arbetat med att validera insikterna från detta pilotprojektet och ytterligare förankra idén i organisationen inför ett förslag om implementering till rektor 2025. Som en del av detta arbetet har vi genomfört workshops med fyraavdelningar ute på skolorna samt med en avdelning på verksamhetsstödet. Resultaten stärker tidigare slutsatser och ger även ytterligare förslag på hur man kan arbeta med att minska flygresandet, till exempel genom att skapa incitament för resandet med tåg, skapa verktyg och guider för hur man kan värdera nyttan av en resa, samt strategier för att minska beroendet på laboratorier och forskningsinfrastruktur i andra länder. Arbetet belyser också flera svåra utmaningar och målkonflikter, så som den mellan internationalisering och hållbarhetsfrågor, vilket kommer bli nödvändigt att bearbeta för att kunna nå KTHs klimatmål.

COVID-19-pandemin har förändrat resandet. Trots pandemins negativa aspekter i form av allvarlig sjukdom, dödsfall och arbetslöshet kan minskat resande bidra till att de globala hållbarhetsmålen uppnås. I arbetet mot dessa betonas behovet av att involvera olika aktörer och många organisationer har redan fastställt mål för minskad klimatpåverkan. Trots detta var substitutionen från exempelvis flygtrafik till digitala möten modest innan COVID-19. För att förstå mer om pågående resebeteendeförändringar vad gäller affärsresor och arbetspendling och dra lärdomar om möjligheten att vidmakthålla positiva förändringar utifrån ett miljö- och organisationsperspektiv genomfördes projektet “Potential for alternative travel practices? – Behavioural changes due to viruses in the short and longer-term” som den 29 april 2020 beviljade bidrag från Mistra enligt VD-beslut nr 2020-15.

Syftet med projektet var att utforska, kvantitativt och kvalitativt, resebeteendeförändringar inom svenska organisationer vad gäller affärsresor och arbetspendling som följd av COVID 19-pandemiutbrottet. Samtidigt ville vi dra lärdomar om möjligheten att vidmakthålla positiva förändringar utifrån ett miljö och organisationsperspektiv och undvika negativa förändringar för framtida mer hållbara resvanor.

Studien visar att resande till och från arbetet och i tjänsten förändrats markant under pandemin. Det blev tydligt att restriktionerna för fysiska resor inneburit att medarbetarna (beroende på arbetsplats och arbetsuppgift) i högre grad tillämpat flexibla arbetsformer och digitala mötesvanor och en stor andel av medarbetarna upplevde en ökad kunskapsnivå kring hantering av digitala möten. För att befästa de positiva förändringarna bör målorienterade handlingsplaner implementeras nu, annars finns en risk att pendeln svänger tillbaka till ett än mer ohållbart resande post COVID-19 eftersom pandemin inte bara inneburit en mängd digitala möten, utan också ett bilberoende. 

CO2 emissions from aviation have been predicted to increase over the coming decades. Within the academic world, flying is often perceived to be a necessary prerequisite to being a successful researcher. Many Swedish universities have ambitious climate goals, but are simultaneously among the top emitters in the public sector. Reaching stated climate goals could feasibly be met through a combination of measures, including decreased flying. One way to address the challenge is to support behavioural interventions with the help of interactive visualizations of CO2 emissions from flying. Those few examples that exist in the research literature are generally directed towards management and are less applicable to universities, given the large autonomy researchers enjoy and their discretionary control of research project funds. This paper uses a design-oriented research approach to present an analysis of the problem space at the intersection of interactive visualizations using air travel data to reduce CO2 emissions from business air travel at our own university, KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Through a number of design experiments, evaluations and investigations, we have unearthed needs, challenges and opportunities for the creation of visualization tools to support more sustainable travel practices at universities and in other knowledge-intensive organisations.

In society in general and within computing in particular, there has, and continues to be, a focus on faster, cheaper, better etc. Such perspectives clash with the fact that impeding climate change and the need for radically decreased CO2 emissions (c.f. the Paris Agreement) will have fundamental and far-reaching ramification for computing and for all other sectors of society during the coming decades. In the call for the first Computing within Limits workshop, it was stated that "A goal of this community is to impact society through the design and development of computing systems in the abundant present for use in a future of limits and/or scarcity."There have since been several contributions to Computing within Limits that have accepted the challenge of discussing and imagining what such systems as well as what "a future of limits and/or scarcity"could look like. Despite this, there is currently no consensus about what exactly such a future entails and the community can consequently only offer hazy ideas about exactly what systems we should strive to design and develop. The basic problem can be summed up as follows: we know that fundamental changes are necessary and will come, but we still struggle with envisioning what a post-growth/decarbonising society looks like and what computing systems need to be designed and developed for use in such futures, or, to support that transition. In this paper we argue that the work of imagining an actionable "future of limits"could benefit from using the "carbon law"as a starting point. The carbon law is based on work in the environmental sciences and we exemplify how it can be used to generate requirements that can guide the development of computing systems for a future of limits. While these lessons are general, we exemplify by describing a research project that aims to support the KTH Royal Institute of Technology's goal of-in line with the carbon law-radically reducing CO2 emissions from academic flying over the next decade. We give examples of how computing can aid in this task, including by presenting visualisation tools that we have developed to support the KTH carbon abatement goals. We also discuss the role of computer science in general and of Computing within Limits in particular in supporting the transition to a more sustainable (or at least a less unsustainable) future.

In order to fulfill the Paris agreement, we need to drastically reduce carbon emissions globally. 2020 is a pivotal year in this endeavour as many projections indicate that emissions need to decrease significantly before 2030. This challenge pertains to all parts of society, including (computer science) researchers. This however clashes with the fact that flying to a large extent has become built-in to the everyday practices of research and of academic life. It is feasible to imagine that computer scientists could fly less than other academics since we ought to be innovators and early adopters of computer-mediated alternatives such as video-conferencing and other forms of digital meeting technologies. It is however also possible that we fly more because conferences might be a more dominant outlet for publications in our field in comparison to other research fields. At KTH Royal Institute of Technology, the researchers at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) fly the most. In this paper, we present initial qualitative results from a survey regarding travel that was answered by computer scientists at EECS. We are in particular analysing the free text answers in order to understand how computer scientists1 reason about their own flying and about the alternatives. It will be hard to fulfil the Paris agreement without decreasing flying significantly, but this requires us to rethink how we do research, and how we travel (or not) within academia. This paper contributes with knowledge about the perceived barriers and drivers for computer scientists to decrease their flying.

In this analysis we discover the potential of a more transparent emission declaration system, in order to a) facilitate for environmentally concerned consumers to choose low-emission flights, and b) provide data for a future emission trading system where the aviation industry is accounted for its emission costs. Some air travel consumers book flights through low-cost flight ticket price comparison websites, that offer comparisons on price, convenience, travel time, and other factors relevant to the consumer. As a basis for this study, an algorithm designed for "flight CO2 emissions comparisons", was developed and implemented on Sweden's largest flight ticket price comparison website that compares flights by CO2 emissions in kg per passenger and trip. A visitor to the site can now also select a flight based on the ranking of carbon emission levels from each flight. In addition to the implementation of the algorithm in a commercial aviation booking system, a survey was conducted to analyze consumer preference data to glean insights and make conclusions about flight ticket price sensitivity, convenience, environmental awareness and potential for behavioral change among air travel consumers. The findings from this study indicate that the algorithm will not act as a catalyst for emission reductions in the aviation sector, unless it is complemented by emission reduction policies and/or introduction of a fair emission taxation system. Furthermore, the aviation sector should be obliged to report accurate emission data on all tickets in order to bring full transparency to consumers searching low emission transport modes.

Sustainable transport analyses are traditionally carried out from two fundamentally different perspectives: a) Internal travel analysis at an organisational level, often as part of corporate environmental audits to develop internal travel policies and company travel plans. b) Macro analysis of the transport system at large, in order to assess traffic flows in relation to alternative infrastructure measures and policy actions at regional level. From a holistic global perspective, both these subsystems should share common visions and long-term targets for sustainability. This would require derivation of processes and tools by which subsystems at different scales could be interlinked and informed by global principles for sustainability. A key component of such work would be to synthesise approaches (a) and (b) in order to facilitate mutual understanding between private and public actors, and between public transport authorities governing the supply of transport services. At present there is rarely mutual understanding between these parties, which risks creating watertight bulkheads between users and providers in the transport system. This case study examined a local travel planning network in the largest business district of Sweden, Kista Science City (KSC), where (as in most larger urban business districts in the world) travel demand is likely to exceed the capacity of the transport system in the coming decade. To counteract this development, some major companies were invited to join the decision process in a joint venture with public authorities. In the project, a backcasting-orientated travel planning model was applied and refined for future monitoring of the process in a regional context. Key findings were: Identification of motives for companies to engage in company travel planning. Demonstration of a need for construction of tangible target scenarios pinpointing the utility and benefits of target fulfilment from both a company and an employee perspective. The first follow-up results of Climate and Economic Research in Organisations (CERO) processes implemented in companies, which showed that emissions reduction targets were met (and even exceeded). Construction of a regional target scenario, consistent with the company-specific target scenarios, in order to obtain constructive and target-orientated stakeholder dialogue. Final selection of a regional action plan designed to meet the regional target scenario for KSC.

Organizations displaying best practices for attaining proactive sustainability targets at local level are of major importance as role models in the transition toward a sustainable transport system. This study summarizes results and conclusions from 20 municipalities in Sweden that have implemented the so called CERO analysis in order to adapt to future emission targets for travel. The overall aim of the study is to identify factors explaining why some municipalities are more successful than others in a benchmarking comparison.The results indicate that commuting by car is by far the most dominant source of emissions, constituting on average 76% of total annual travel emissions (including both commuting and business travel). In order to reduce these emissions, travel planning programs within organizations must address both commuting conditions and business travel conditions to reduce car dependence for work travel, e.g., employees using private cars for business trips most likely also use their own cars for commuting. To identify potential success factors as regards emissions-efficient travel, three comparative statistical analyses were conducted: grouping municipalities with low emissions in relation to the total average; analysis of car commuters' willingness to change travel mode; and before-and-after analyses of municipalities implementing specific action plans. The results revealed that municipalities conducting follow-up studies 2years after implementing travel planning programs all lowered their total CO2 emissions, by on average 10% during a 2-year period. Overall, these municipalities achieved redistribution to alternative travel modes but also reduced total travel mileage.

The Swedish Transport Administration, together with public transport providers, municipalities, transport planners, and other stakeholders, has launched a new concept for transport planning called Local Action Selection Process (LASp). The aim of LASP is to create informed decisions and consensus around alternative accessibility improvements in the transport system through a process of dialogue between public authorities and other stakeholders. On the national scale, Sweden has set some of the world's toughest climate targets, implying a transport sector independent of fossil fuels by 2030. The aim of this study was to create a structured methodology and process format for integrating the national transport targets at a local scale in LASP by constructing quantifiable and tailor-made target scenarios. The so-called CERO model (Climate and Economic Research in Organizations) for target-oriented travel planning at organization level was reformed in this work to handle scenario generation and prioritization of measures in LASP. In addition, a simulation tool was developed to support the quantitative basis for scenario generation and decision making between stakeholders in the planning process.