The ASTMH Green Task Force was established in November 2019 and has been meeting regularly ever since to identify and prioritize opportunities for ASTMH to promote sustainable practices, research and education. The task force developed the following
ASTMH Green Statement to serve as a guiding light for The Society:
Global climate change directly and indirectly impacts the spread of infectious diseases and threatens the public health progress made since the founding of our Society. ASTMH membership recognizes that our activities, both individual and collective, influence climate change and that we can leverage our strengths to be better stewards of our interconnected planet.
In order to successfully carry out our Society’s goals, we commit to:
- Holding ourselves responsible as a community for our impact by reducing the environmental footprint of the Annual Meeting and the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
- Encouraging interdisciplinary research and partnerships to advance environmental sustainability within our global health efforts
- Raising awareness within our Society’s reach
The Green Task Force identified several areas of focus to enhance sustainability practices at the Annual Meeting. Examples include reducing paper signage; making sustainable food choices; reducing paper and plastic water bottle usage; encouraging symposia and scientific programming on climate change and impacts; promoting a social media campaign to raise sustainability awareness; and having a sustainability TropStop lunch.
With the shift to a wholly virtual conference in 2020 and 2021, some of those plans have been shelved, but they will definitely be dusted off and updated for our next in-person meeting, with all eyes on the
2022 Annual Meeting in Seattle.
With respect to encouraging symposia and scientific programming on climate change and impacts, the Green Task Force organized a symposium, Pandemics in the Anthropocene: a Multidisciplinary Approach to Global Health Research in the Context of Climate Change, taking place November 18 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The task force encourages attendees to look for and attend at the 2021 virtual Annual Meeting. The task force will provide a comprehensive list of the scientific presentations and symposia that have a particular focus on climate change and the environment.
For those of you active on social media, the task force hopes that you have noticed the Society’s messaging aimed to promote sustainability practices and research at the intersection of global health and environmental sustainability. You are encouraged to share those messages far and wide.
A recent paper,
Ten simple rules to make your research more sustainable, is a good summary of how all of us can make small and large contributions in this arena. A few examples from this paper:
- Work collectively and reproducibly
- Encourage bottom-up sustainable initiatives
- Evaluate the impact of your research practices
- Ask sustainability research questions
- Transfer eco-friendly gestures from home to lab
- Raise awareness
PDF Versions of slide decks for ASTMH's Green Task Force resources:
References: Ligozat A-L, Névéol A, Daly B, Frenoux E (2020) Ten simple rules to make your research more sustainable.
PLoS Comput Biol 16(9): e1008148. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008148