Greener Travel Policy

As an international organisation, CEPR’s activities inevitably involve travel, which contributes significantly to our carbon footprint. While online collaboration has expanded since the pandemic, in-person meetings remain essential for fostering research partnerships, exchanging ideas, and supporting early-career scholars.

At the same time, CEPR acknowledges its responsibility to reduce the environmental impact of its activities. The Greener Travel Policy has therefore been introduced to balance two important goals: (1) enabling meaningful academic collaboration through travel, and (2) reducing and compensating for the emissions generated by that travel. The policy combines emission reduction measures (e.g. prioritising rail over short-haul flights) with carbon compensation for unavoidable air travel.

CEPR Greener Travel Policy – Claimant Instructions

This page provides step-by-step instructions for claimants on how to comply with the new policy when submitting travel expense claims. Please refer to the full CEPR travel guidelines for any further information on CEPR’s reimbursement process.

1. Choosing Your Mode of Travel

Journeys under six hours: Travel by train instead of flying, unless there are valid reasons (e.g. childcare responsibilities, health needs, accessibility issues, unavoidable teaching/administrative duties).
Journeys over six hours: Flying may be used where necessary.

2. Expense Claim Form – Required Information

When completing the CEPR expense claim form, you will be asked to provide:
Flight emissions contribution: For air travel, specify whether you:
- Agree to participate in the offset contribution (default option),
- Opt out of the contribution, or
- Have already offset your flight emissions through another programme (e.g. airline green fare, university scheme).
- If you travelled by train or by car, please select “No, I did not fly to the conference”.
Travel region: Indicate the region of departure and arrival (e.g. Europe, East Coast USA & Canada, West Coast / Central USA & Canada, LATAM, MENA, Sub Saharan Africa, South & Southeast Asia, East Asia or Oceania). This is used to estimate emissions without reviewing each ticket.
Long-haul or short-haul: Indicate whether your flight was six hours or less (short-haul), or longer than six hours (long-haul).

3. Carbon Offset Contribution

For reimbursed flights, a small contribution will be deducted from your reimbursement:
- €20 for short-haul flights (or the equivalent in the reimbursement currency)
- €50 for intercontinental (long-haul) flights (or the equivalent in the reimbursement currency)
Contributions are automatically deducted and used to purchase certified carbon offsets.
These deductions are designed to be modest enough not to discourage attendance, while generating meaningful impact.

4. Opt-Out and Alternative Offsets

Claimants have the following options:

Opt-out entirely if you do not wish to participate.
Declare alternative offsetting if your emissions have already been neutralised through another programme.
Train travel declaration: If you travelled by train, no offset will be applied.

Further Information

To calculate flight-related emissions, CEPR will rely on the publicly available Google Flights methodology, using average origin–destination estimates. This approach avoids the need for detailed ticket review while ensuring accuracy across events. Only flights directly reimbursed by CEPR are included in these calculations.

The Committee on CEPR Travel Policies (Patrick Bolton, Estelle Cantillon and Mar Reguant) will oversee implementation and conduct regular reviews to ensure the policy is fair, transparent, and effective.

Note this policy provides a pragmatic mechanism to reduce CEPR’s environmental impact. It should not be seen as permission to disregard the consequences of air travel. We ask all participants to remain mindful of sustainability when making travel choices.

For any queries related to the Greener Travel Policy, please get in touch with CEPR’s events team [email protected].