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Scope 3 emissions from the UK higher education sector are globally significant, and long-distance air travel and catering are particularly emissions-intensive aspects of workplace routine. They each present complex problems, as transition to low-carbon alternatives requires the reconfiguration of professional practices. This paper examines the sustainability policies of 66 UK universities to establish the extent to which planning and action in these areas are commensurate with climate emergency declarations. The findings indicate that universities recognize their role in creating demand for long-distance travel and sustaining high-carbon diets. However, few have specific emissions reduction targets or action plans that would rapidly and substantially reduce emissions in these areas. Discussion focuses on two core points; first, how greater cohesion in reporting and target-setting can be achieved across the sector to raise the ambition of targets and intervention; and second to identify opportunities for institutions to disrupt and reshape professional practices to reduce emissions in these areas. Key Policy Insights Reducing emissions in the higher education sector requires organizations to foster low-carbon academic practices by engaging with the systemic cultural and material conditions that support high-carbon academic practices. The establishment of robust targets, action plans and monitoring processes would further support sector-wide decarbonization, and require consensus across HE institutions and governing bodies. Sector-wide agreement on the level and pace of emissions reduction will help to accelerate ambition regarding Scope 3 emissions reduction and determining the appropriate contribution of different institutions will help identify where action is most urgently required. Findings suggest a need for absolute targets for emissions reduction associated with long-distance travel, and that food policies focus on achieving a volumetric reduction in the weight of meat served so that absolute levels of greenhouse gas emissions are reduced. Travel and food provision are complex aspects of university emissions, but a climate emergency framing requires all organizations to use their full range of influence to rapidly and substantially reduce emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This self-reflective article considers the support mechanisms from which new lecturers from a teaching background may benefit upon their entry to academia. The concept of academic identity is explored and the suggestion of a continually evolving professional identity is discussed. Emergent themes of reciprocity and critical friendship, team teaching and personal skills and qualities are examined. The framework for this article is the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework and recommendations for higher education practice are made in support of this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automated control of consumer electricity loads, or active demand (AD) management, is a key component of many smart grid futures. Within the sociology of expectations, expectations define the future role and responsibilities of actors with respect to a new technology and in so doing set a trajectory for design and development. This paper explores the expectations of the behaviour of end users, envisaged by the designers and engineers of an AD project. Three main themes emerge. The first theme is that designers situate the new technology in an electricity consumption ideal, where households harmonise daily routines to service electricity retail markets. In the second theme, AD is aligned to new technological landscapes and enhanced through digital innovations. These visions are crucial for achieving the third theme, namely economically rational consumers. For widespread adoption of AD, however, the technology needs to be designed for real, as opposed to ideal users. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Progress toward decarbonizing shipping has been slow compared with other sectors. To explore the scope for an urgent step-change cut in CO2, this paper presents results from a participatory technology roadmapping exercise. Results: Combining existing incremental and novel technologies with slow-steaming can deliver reductions in CO2 of over 50% even in the short term for existing ships. However, roadmaps for three vessel types illustrate barriers to change including the sector's complexity, infrastructure lock-in and a need for tailored market and vessel-specific roadmaps to support decision-making. Conclusions: Through technology and engineering, the outlook for the shipping sector to significantly cut its CO2 emissions, even in the short term, is promising. Nevertheless, the scale of change requires support to demonstrate how the long-term low-carbon vision offers enough benefit to overcome necessary short-term investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: GHG budgets highlight a need for urgency, yet analyses are often CO2-focused, with less attention paid to non-CO2. Results: In this paper, scenarios are used to explore non-CO2 drivers and barriers to their mitigation, drawing out implications for CO2 management. Results suggest that even optimistic technological and consumption-related developments lead to on-going increases in global N2O, largely to improve food security within a changing climate. This contrasts with existing analysis, where lower levels of N2O by 2050 are projected. Conclusions: As avoiding '2ｰC' limits the emissions budget, constraints on reducing non-CO2 add pressure to energy system decarbonization. Overlooking how a changing climate and rising consumption restricts efforts to curb non-CO2 will result in policies aiming to avoid 2ｰC falling short of the mark. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid-1990s, the aim of keeping climate change within 2 °C has become firmly entrenched in policy discourses. In the past few years, the likelihood of achieving it has been increasingly called into question. The debate around what to do with a target that seems less and less achievable is, however, only just beginning. As the UN commences a two-year review of the 2 °C target, this article moves beyond the somewhat binary debates about whether or not it should or will be met, in order to analyse more fully some of the alternative options that have been identified but not fully explored in the existing literature. For the first time, uncertainties, risks, and opportunities associated with four such options are identified and synthesized from the literature. The analysis finds that the significant risks and uncertainties associated with some options may encourage decision makers to recommit to the 2 °C target as the least unattractive course of action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Are you going to tell me off for flying?' This question was asked three times by a lady in South Manchester, England, when we asked her to participate in our qualitative in-home study on flying. She asked it once when we approached her in the street to ask if we may interview her. She asked again when we phoned to confirm the time and address of the interview, and she asked it a third time while serving tea and biscuits at the beginning of the interview. Needless to say we had given absolutely no indication that the interview would pass 'judgment' on her flying activities. The lady had undertaken six return trips by air for leisure in the previous year, and in the final section of the interview commented 'I will have a conscience, but I won't not fly to Miami...'. As this one example shows, the frequent flying/environmental impact question is currently a hot topic. It brings forth a cocktail of rich unprompted discussion and a mixed bag of responses, it has become emotionally charged and polemic. Accounts and justifications concerning frequent flying range from surprise that a taken-for-granted everyday activity which until very recently had been considered a culturally desirable thing to do, has suddenly become frowned upon; to a sense of almost guilty pleasure, apology and, at its extremes, defiance. What the significance and explanation for this might be in sociological terms is the focus of this paper. The answers are important, in particular for policy stakeholders seeking to curb consumption behaviours as one of a portfolio of emissions reduction strategies. It is to the policy audience that this paper primarily speaks. It also provides a quite different - out of the box - insight and contribution to the aviation and emissions debate, which complements the more 'supply side' technology and research and development focused papers which dominate the aviation and emissions-reduction literature currently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aviation sector is in turbulent times. On top of increased security concerns, oil price rises and health scares, it now finds itself at the centre of the climate change debate. Previously highly resilient to short-term 'shocks', it remains unclear as to how the aviation sector will respond to persistent and significant pressure to mitigate its global carbon emissions. From a technological point of view, mitigation is not straightforward, with few, if any, low-carbon technologies available in the short-term and significant time-lags in achieving the necessary penetration of the global fleet. Moreover, many drivers within the sector are aligned towards growth and despite political recognition of the increasing importance of aviation's CO2 emissions, policies encouraging growth of the industry continue to conflict with the climate change agenda. Given the complexity of the aviation system within a dynamic commercial environment, scenarios, rather than economic forecasts, are used here to explore opportunities for the aviation industry to develop within the constraints of the EU's own climate change targets. The scenarios illustrate a variety of feasible aviation futures, but all require other sectors to make emission reductions well in excess of those levels currently envisaged, due to the expansion of the EU's aviation industry within a constrained carbon cap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]