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How research can steer academia towards a low-carbon future

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 22 September 2023

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Labos 1point5 is a nationwide action-research project that so far about half of research units in France have used to assess their carbon footprint. Tamara Ben-Ari describes some of the scientific findings from the resulting dataset and what they show about how to change the scientific system.

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Fig. 1: Per capita GHG emission (kg CO2e) per source of emission in 2019 (that is, total research unit carbon footprint divided by the number of staff member within these units).

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Acknowledgements

The results presented here were produced as part of the Labos 1point5 Groupement De Recherche (GDR), which is financially supported by ADEME, CNRS, INRIA and INRAE. I thank G. Lefort and J. Mariette for their help on producing Fig. 1. The work presented here arises from the involvement of several dozens of scientists coordinated by a team of scientists comprising O. Aumont, M. Avet, T. Ben-Ari, G. Blanc, A. Estevez-Torres, M.-A. Foujols, J. Mariette, C. Serrano and M. Ridel. I thank O. Berné, A. Hardy, B. Fagard, N. Flagey and P. Charbonnier for their feedback on the present text. Labos 1point5 is currently expanding outside of France under the supervision of J. Mariette and M. Coriat: in Europe (notably with the help of B. Fagard and W. Cramer), in Canada (with the help of C. Verchère) and the USA (with the help of N. Flagey and I. Magrin-Chagnolleau); contact can be made via contact@labos1point5.org.

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  1. INRAE, UMR Innovation et transformation des systèmes agricoles et alimentaires, Montpellier, France

    Tamara Ben-Ari

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  1. Tamara Ben-Ari
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Correspondence to Tamara Ben-Ari.

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Ben-Ari, T. How research can steer academia towards a low-carbon future. Nat Rev Phys 5, 551–552 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-023-00633-9

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