How Is AI Affecting Open Research?
Learn about the advances, risks and challenges that are shaping open research practices, including artificial intelligence, from two experts based in Europe.
To reach net zero, institutions need to shift the behavior of their whole campus community toward reducing their carbon footprint and making greener daily choices. This means changing long-established habits among thousands of students and staff. How can universities do this without becoming too dictatorial?
We asked behavior-change expert Esther Papies, a professor at Radboud University in the Netherlands, to explain what drives successful behavior change and therefore what strategies universities need to employ to reduce their overall emissions and create greener campuses.
Papies’s research examines the social and psychological processes in the transition to healthier, more sustainable and more equitable choices, particularly relating to diet. She has published extensively on the motivations and barriers for reducing meat and dairy intake, the motivation for climate action among privileged individuals, and emotional experiences relating to climate change.
She provides a clear breakdown of what is needed to support long-term behavior change in favor of more sustainable lifestyles and shares advice on how to overcome inevitable resistance to altering long-held behavioral norms such as eating meat and driving cars.
You can find much more advice relating to reducing emissions and improving sustainability across higher education on the Campus site. Head to our dedicated section with advice on how universities can work toward the Sustainable Development Goals or check out our related spotlight guides:
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