Environmental benefits of the online convention on "Regional Mobility beyond TEN-T"
A calculatory approach of the University of Applied Sciences Erfurt
The final conference for the SubNodes-project was scheduled to take place in early July in Brussels. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this event had to be cancelled, just as many other ones. The project partners went for an online conference instead. And so, on 26 May 2020, 91 participants joined to follow the convention on Regional Mobility beyond TEN-T online.
This shift in place and format of the convention led to savings associated with travelling. But not only the budgetary savings of each participant are worth noting, so are the environmental benefits of the overall event.
As one of the SubNodes-project partners, the University of Applied Sciences Erfurt addressed the ecological savings with respect to GHG-emissions. The calculation shows that nearly 23 tonnes of GHG-emissions were avoided with the online-convention. See an illustration graphic here. An explanatory text with details on the reasearch methodology is available in German by now; the English version is to follow in autumn.
It is to be noted though, that individual and personal meetings are a core element of Interreg-projects, especially when it comes to informally exchanging knwoledge and experiences and to networking. These additional benefits of physical meetings pose the elemental limitations of online meetings and can't offset the environmental benefits entirely.
For more and detailed information on the analysis, please contact Mr. Matthias Gather: matthias.gather@fh-erfurt.de
