Carbon Smart Travel Program

Image: Adobestock by Lukas Gojda

University travel is integral to how we teach, research and engage with our communities. It enables collaboration, fieldwork and knowledge exchange, but it also greatly contributes to our greenhouse gas emissions.

Our Carbon Smart Travel Guide helps you plan and undertake University travel in ways that reduce emissions while maintaining impact. Explore practical actions and considerations for planning lower-carbon travel below and stay up to date with our progress through our various reports, publications and community updates.

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Our approach

We are focusing on how to support our staff and students to undertake essential travel with a lower carbon footprint. Our approach centres on enabling informed decisions, strengthening systems and embedding sustainability into everyday travel practices.

We do this by:

Creating an enabling environment that supports local areas and individuals to reduce travel emissions
Developing tools and resources that support low-carbon travel decision-making
Reviewing and adjusting systems and policies to ensure an equitable and sustainable travel emissions reduction is achieved

Since 2021, staff and students across the University have collaborated to advance this work. Key initiatives and projects are outlined in the University Travel Emissions Reduction Program table below.

Our goal

Enable our community to undertake essential University travel with a lower greenhouse gas footprint.

Our target

Reduce emissions from University travel by 10% (2024 baseline)*.

This target is supported by improvements to travel systems and policy, expanded infrastructure, behaviour change initiatives, and collaboration across the University and sector.

* For University travel, an aspirational target has been set to motivate community action, recognising that a 38.5% emissions reduction had already been achieved by 2025 (2019 base year).

Our progress

In 2023, ANU set an ambitious target to reduce University travel emissions by 50% from 2019 levels by 2025. By the end of 2025, emissions were 38.5% below 2019 levels. This reflects sustained action across policy, systems, data improvements, and behaviour change initiatives, even as travel activity has increased since the COVID-19 period.

Key initiatives supporting progress include:

Launching the Travel Emissions Tracker, providing staff and students with clearer insights into the emissions associated with their travel decisions, and expanding the inventory to capture hire cars and taxis
Conducting a University-wide travel survey to better understand behaviours, barriers and opportunities for lower-carbon travel
Updating the Carbon Smart Travel Guide to support smarter planning and practical emissions reduction when travel is necessary
Updating the ANU Travel Policy and Handbook guidance
Launching a new travel management system in 2025 to improve planning and tracking

Supporting our community to reduce emissions from University travel remains a priority. Explore the projects, tools and resources below to see how this work is being embedded across the University.

Our progress is reviewed regularly and published through various reports and publications.

View reports

Carbon Smart Travel Guide

Our Carbon Smart Travel Guide helps you plan and undertake University travel in ways that reduce emissions while maintaining impact. It brings together guidance from the ANU Travel Policy and ANU Travel Handbook, and should be used alongside these documents when planning university travel.

Even small changes, like rethinking one trip or choosing a lower-emissions option, can significantly reduce our overall impact.

Step 1: Rethink the need to travel

Before you book, consider whether travel is the most effective way to achieve your goal. Could this be done virtually, could fewer people attend in person, or could multiple purposes be combined into one trip?

Use the decision tree in our Carbon Smart Travel Guide to consider alternatives to travel.

Actions

Map expected travel across the calendar or financial year, or project duration
Identify opportunities to reduce or replace trips with virtual attendance. If time zones are a barrier, discuss flexible work options with your supervisor.
Review your travel patterns in the Travel Emissions Tracker. Two or more long-haul flights per year may place you in the high emitter group. View your emissions via the traveller profile tab.
Explore regional or local collaboration options or establish a hub to network with nearby colleagues and travel shorter distances.

Step 2: Choose lower-carbon transport

When travel is essential, your choice of transport has the biggest impact on emissions.

Actions

Compare transport (rail, coach and shared travel typically have lower emissions than flights or single-occupancy vehicles). See the emissions comparison tool in our Carbon Smart Travel Guide.
Choose direct routes and lower-emissions flights when flying is the only option. Our Travel Management system provides emissions data for all flights on the online platform. When booking flights, sort options per emissions (see figure below).
Fly economy (significantly lower emissions per passenger)

Step 3: Reduce your impact while travelling

Once you arrive, small decisions can reduce your overall footprint.

Actions

Choose lower-carbon transport at your destination (walk, cycle, public or shared transport)
Select accommodation with clear sustainability commitments.
Reduce energy and water use by turning off lights, air conditioning and heating, reusing towels, unplugging devices and opting out of daily linen replacement.
Minimise waste and support local goods and services
Be mindful of local culture, heritage and community values. Take the time to learn about the local history and culture.

Download the Carbon Smart Travel Guide (PDF, 943 KB)