Colleagues choose the plane too easily when they have to go to a conference, researchers from the UMCG think. They cycle to Prague in four days. But how do they want to compensate for the CO2 emissions of flying colleagues?
Suzanne Voorrips (29) ran her last laps as a professional athlete in February. She concluded her top sports career with a silver medal in the 800 meters at the Dutch National Championships. She would be able to compete at the highest level for years to come, but decided to devote herself fully to her job as a physician-researcher in the department of cardiology at the UMCG. And now, only a few months later, she is training hard again.
Not on running shoes, but on the clipless pedals. “Cycling is completely different from running, but I do notice that my body is used to adapting to new training schedules,” says Voorrips. “I benefited from that.”
Voorrips is preparing to cycle from the UMCG to Prague in four days with her three cardiology colleagues Nils Bömer (assistant professor), Joost Beusekamp (AIOS) and Bart van Essen (physician researcher). It is a distance of about 800 kilometers, so they will have to pedal about 200 kilometers every day. “The first days we do a bit more, because we have more altimeters on the last day and then a shorter stage is nice.”
More sustainable
The quartet does not do it just for fun. They notice that researchers (and certainly not only at the UMCG) choose to fly on automatic pilot when they have to go abroad for a conference. “Of course there are places where you have to rely on the plane, but there are certainly plenty of cities within Europe that you can travel to in a more sustainable way,” says Voorrips.
Let’s get on a bike and link it to an action, so that researchers and perhaps others are persuaded to change their minds, the four decided. “In our department, several colleagues have now decided that they will no longer travel by plane,” says Voorrips. “Now they are looking at how to get to Prague by train or car.”
Spare straps
On May 20, a major conference on heart failure will start in the Czech capital. This means that the UMCG staff must leave on 16 May. They are assisted by a support car with three other colleagues, who provide them with food and drink and spare tires during the journey. Not only do they want to keep their own ecological footprint towards the congress as small as possible, they also try to compensate for the CO2 emissions of all visitors who do come by plane.
The researchers have calculated that she will need 30,000 euros for this. The money raised will go to FairClaimFund, a non-profit organization that invests money in, among other things, ‘certified climate projects that benefit people in vulnerable areas’.
By the way, the researchers will not make the return journey by bicycle. Then the whole adventure would take a little too long. “As far as it fits, we will go with the support car and the rest will take the train.” In Voorrips’ words, that is “the greenest option”. Except for the racing bike.
Anyone wishing to support the researchers’ campaign financially can do so at this site .