Sustainability

At ISWC2023 SWSA announced the launch of an initiative dedicated to offsetting the carbon footprint of the conference series. Prof Harith Alani, SWSA vice-president for sustainability, will be leading on the initiative.

SWSA is committed to sustainability while recognising the significance of scientific networking and the evolving need for hybrid conference formats. To reduce the environmental impact of our hybrid conferences, we are implementing measures to calculate their carbon footprint. Subsequently, we will fund offsetting projects carefully chosen from the UN Carbon Offset Platform, ensuring our contributions support impactful initiatives aligned with our commitment to environmental responsibility.

SWSA will announce the measures taken annualy at each edition of the conference, and aspire to collect feedback from the community to enhance and extend our efforts from a more sustainable scientific networking environment.

Going forward, hosting bids for ISWC will be expected to assess the environmental impact of conference arrangements and demonstrate measures taken to reduce this impact.