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Research meetings must be more sustainable

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Scientific meetings should be organized in the spirit of responsible consumption and production, including the prioritization of plant-based meals for reduced nitrogen loss. The Cercedilla Manifesto indicates how.

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Fig. 1: Twelve points to enhance the sustainability of research meetings as proposed by the Cercedilla Manifesto.

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Acknowledgements

This paper constitutes an output from the Expert Panel of Nitrogen and Food of the Task Force on Reactive Nitrogen under the Working Group on Strategies and Review of the UN–ECE Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution. The views and conclusions expressed are purely those of the authors and may not in any circumstance be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission or institutions where other co-authors are based. The name ‘Cercedilla’ is only attributed to the manifesto because it specifies the location where A.S.C. and A.L. conceived the idea of the manuscript during an Expert Panel on Nitrogen and Food (EPNF) meeting, thus there is no other relationship between this town and the ideas expressed here.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Center for the Management of Environmental and Agricultural Risks (CEIGRAM), ETSIAAB, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Alberto Sanz-Cobena & Eduardo Aguilera

  2. Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

    Roberta Alessandrini

  3. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Potsdam, Germany

    Benjamin Leon Bodirsky

  4. Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Marco Springmann

  5. Centre on Population Approaches for Non-Communicable Disease Prevention, Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Marco Springmann

  6. Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (ATB), Potsdam, Germany

    Barbara Amon

  7. Faculty of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Environmental Engineering, University of Zielona Góra, Zielona Góra, Poland

    Barbara Amon

  8. Department of Food Agriculture and Environment (DAFE), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Fabio Bartolini

  9. German Environment Agency (UBA), Dessau-Roßlau, Germany

    Markus Geupel

  10. European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Ispra, Italy

    Bruna Grizzetti & Adrian Leip

  11. Public Health Consultant, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Susanna Kugelberg

  12. Institute for Food and Resource Economics, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Catharina Latka

  13. School of Agriculture and Food, Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Xia Liang, Ee Ling Ng & Helen Suter

  14. Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO), Bergen, Norway

    Anna Birgitte Milford

  15. School of Agricultural Sciences, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda

    Patrick Musinguzi

Authors
  1. Alberto Sanz-Cobena
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  2. Roberta Alessandrini
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  3. Benjamin Leon Bodirsky
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  4. Marco Springmann
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  5. Eduardo Aguilera
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  6. Barbara Amon
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  7. Fabio Bartolini
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  8. Markus Geupel
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  9. Bruna Grizzetti
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  10. Susanna Kugelberg
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  11. Catharina Latka
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  12. Xia Liang
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  13. Anna Birgitte Milford
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  14. Patrick Musinguzi
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  15. Ee Ling Ng
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  16. Helen Suter
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  17. Adrian Leip
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Contributions

A.S.C. and A.L. conceived the idea of the manuscript during an EPNF meeting in Cercedilla, Spain; A.L., A.S.C., B.L.B., R.A. and M.S. drafted the first version of the draft; A.L. and P.M. contributed with data for the INI2013 conference; E-L.N., X.L. and H.S. contributed with data for the INI2016 conference; M.G. contributed with information on the 8th INI conference; all authors discussed and commented on the manuscript and contributed to its writing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Adrian Leip.

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Sanz-Cobena, A., Alessandrini, R., Bodirsky, B.L. et al. Research meetings must be more sustainable. Nat Food 1, 187–189 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-020-0065-2

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