ESTRO 2025 - Abstract Book

S2224

Interdisciplinary – Global health

ESTRO 2025

Keywords: Sustainability, carbon footprint, proton therapy

References: 1. T. Dvorak et al, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrobp.2023.05.022 2. T. Dvorak et al, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrobp.2022.07.1427 3. R Chuter et al, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejmp.2023.102652

1420

Poster Discussion Estimating the carbon footprint of ESTRO conferences and modelling how to reduce it Robert Chuter 1,2 , Frank Brewster 1 , Kari Tanderup 3,4

1 Christie Medical Physics and Engineering, The Christie NHS FT, Manchester, United Kingdom. 2 Division of Cancer Sciences, School of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom. 3 Department of Oncology, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark. 4 Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark Purpose/Objective: Academics and healthcare professionals attend international meetings to ensure their practice is up to date, to network and share ideas. However, this travel, as well as the venue and accommodation, have associated large carbon footprints [1, 2]. This study aimed to estimate the carbon footprint of ESTRO conferences and potential means of reducing it in the future. Material/Methods: The number of delegates from each country for ESTRO23 in Vienna was used as the basis of this work. To determine the carbon footprint, in units of kg CO 2 equivalent (CO 2 e), of travel from the main city within the attendees’ country to Vienna the accredited climatiq [3] API was utilised, this was also used to calculate the impact of hotel stays and energy use of venues. In addition, a post-ESTRO23 survey recorded how delegates travelled was used to estimate the proportion of people travelling by train. The maximum impact of future train travel was estimated by calculating CO 2 e if all European attendees travelled by train. Other scenarios were estimated by replacing Vienna as the host city with other European cities. Finally, a scenario with online attendance was modelled assuming that all non-European attendees participated online and all others onsite in Amsterdam. Results: The total number of attendees at ESTRO23 was 6,710. UK, Germany, Netherlands, USA and Italy were the five countries with most delegates. Figure 1 shows the total carbon footprint for 17 different venues. With current modes of transport the lowest travel CO 2 e would be if the ESTRO congress was held in Antwerp with 8,873 tCO 2 e, equivalent to driving 54 million km in an average UK car, 28% lower than holding it in Lisbon. The equivalent carbon footprint if everyone in Europe travelled by train was on average 17% lower (range 12 to 28%).