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How to assess the carbon footprint of a large-scale physics project

Nature Reviews Physics volume 3, pages 386–387 (2021)Cite this article

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Large-scale projects have become increasingly important in physics. They are also a source of greenhouse gas emissions. Clarisse Aujoux, Odile Blanchard and Kumiko Kotera describe how to use transparent, open data to estimate these emissions — the first step in taking effective action to reduce them.

Large-scale experiments are building blocks of the physics community: they involve a large fraction of the scientific staff working in multiple countries, and absorb a significant volume of the science budget. They are also a collection of carbon-emitting sources and practices. As such, it is essential to assess their environmental impact.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the GRAND Collaboration. This work was supported by the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, and by the APACHE grant (ANR-16-CE31-0001) of the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sorbonne Université, UPMC Univ. Paris 6 et CNRS, UMR 7095, Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, Paris, France

    Clarisse Aujoux & Kumiko Kotera

  2. Université Grenoble Alpes, GAEL Laboratory (UMR CNRS 5313, UMR INRAe 1215), Grenoble, France

    Odile Blanchard

  3. Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Physics Department, Brussels, Belgium

    Kumiko Kotera

Authors
  1. Clarisse Aujoux
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  2. Odile Blanchard
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  3. Kumiko Kotera
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kumiko Kotera.

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Aujoux, C., Blanchard, O. & Kotera, K. How to assess the carbon footprint of a large-scale physics project. Nat Rev Phys 3, 386–387 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-021-00325-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-021-00325-2

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