ICSE 2022 Sustainability Report

2026-03-02

AI Summary

This study investigates whether the carbon footprint of in-person academic conferences is offset by their scholarly and social benefits. Focusing on ICSE 2022, a premier software engineering conference, we conducted the first systematic sustainability survey in the field, collecting perceptual data from 53 attendees (42 valid responses) regarding environmental impact and perceived conference value, followed by quantitative analysis. Results reveal that nearly one-fifth of respondents believe the emissions from attending in person are not justified by the benefits gained, underscoring the urgency of transitioning academic conferences toward more sustainable formats. This work provides the first empirical quantification in software engineering of the disparity between participants’ awareness of carbon footprint and their valuation of conference outcomes, offering evidence-based insights to inform greener academic practices.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Web
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Sustainability and climate impact of web technologies
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Sustainability and carbon-aware systems for Web, mobile, and WoT
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements

Abstract

The carbon footprint of academic conferences becomes a topic of increasing debate. It is important to consider whether the benefits derived from attending conferences in person outweigh the community's carbon footprint. Therefore, we need to evaluate the overall ecological consequences in relation to the perceived advantages. To that extent, we conducted a post-conference questionnaire survey among participants of the 44th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) 2022 in Pittsburgh, USA, seeking their feedback about the conference and experience from a sustainability perspective. In total, 53 participants filled out our survey. Overall, 8 of 42 respondents felt that the community's carbon footprint was not offset by the benefits of in-person attendance.

Problem

• carbon footprint
• academic conferences
• sustainability
• in-person attendance
• ecological impact

Innovation

• carbon footprint
• sustainability
• academic conferences
• empirical survey
• environmental impact