How far would you go? Assessing the carbon footprint of business travel in the context of academic research activity

A growing focus on the topic of climate change, carbon footprints and other associated environmental issues has pervaded society, and has inter alia generated extensive comment (Kotler, 2011; Polonsky, 2011), albeit with varying periodic emphasis, depending on current events and the vagaries of news agendas. Madeleine Bunting (2009), in a column in the UK newspaper The Guardian drawing on the ideas of Amitai Etzoni, argues that the environment has become one of the great 'moral megalogues' of our age – namely, a subject on which millions of members of society hold opinions and freely exchange their views in a variety of settings and contexts. Whilst such megalogues have no clear beginning or end, over time they can lead to changes in culture and people’s behaviour.

'Sustainability' is a term that has become intimately connected with this environmental megalogue. Barlett and Chase (2004, 6) conceptualise sustainability as 'an intersection of three domains': (1) the economic, relating to the production of goods and services to support the livelihood of populations; (2) the social, relating to issues such as social justice and political participation, and (3) the environmental, relating to the maintenance of biodiversity and the health of biological systems. Arguably, all three of these domains have direct implications for public value (O’Flynn, 2007) and the sustainable use of resources. Indeed, Swilling (2011) explicitly links sustainability and public value and goes as far as to state that this 'is rapidly becoming the unifying challenge of our generation' (94).