Travel Decision Tools
ETH Zurich offers various tools to make the right choice regarding mobility for business travel. When booking flights, the advance determination of the trip's greenhouse gas emissions is of particular importance.
In the case of air travel, assessing the greenhouse gas emissions of the trip in advance and weighing them against other types of mobility or virtual participation in conferences and work meetings is particularly important. The rule is: avoid and reduce first, and only then offset unavoidable emissions.
Flight Decision Tree
The DownloadETH Zurich Flight Decision Tree (PDF, 18.1 MB) was developed in the context of the ETH Air Travel Project. It supports people in a playful way in deciding whether and how they would like to participate in an international event or conference and how they can organize their journey there.
Train or plane within Europe
According to the ETH Zurich Regulations Concerning Business Expenses, business trips that can be reached by train or bus in under 8 hours travel time should be made by these means of transportation whenever possible. The map of Europe with relevant destinations provides a quick overview and helps with travel planning:
routeRANK Travel Decision Tool
ETH Zurich offers the travel decision tool external pagerouteRANK, which compares the mobility modes and their greenhouse gas emissions for a planned trip. Using Single Sign-On (SSO), ETH employees can log in without having to create an account. The tool allows you to sort different travel options for the same destination according to greenhouse gas emissions, price or duration and thus to make an informed decision. The desired travel option in routeRANK can then be booked either directly with an external provider or through the ETH partner travel agency Kuster Reisen.
The external pagerouteRANK User Guide ETH Zurich explains step by step how to use the travel decision tool.
Virtual and hybrid communication
The coronavirus pandemic has shown that virtual and hybrid forms of conferences and work meetings can be productive and stimulating and offer a real alternative to emission-generating brief stays. For larger events, ETH Zurich's video conferencing service (Multimedia Technologies; MMT) operates video conferencing rooms at the Zentrum (HG, LEE) and Hönggerberg (HCI, HIT) locations. In addition, advice on local videoconferencing installation in departments and institutes as well as on standard equipment for meeting rooms of various sizes can be requested.
Detailed information on services, infrastructure, application scenarios and room equipment can be found on the website of ETH Zurich's video conferencing service.
Booking air travel via Kuster Reisen
ETH Zurich's travel department recommends booking air travel through protected pageETH's partner travel agency Kuster Reisen. The travel consultants at Kuster Reisen are available by phone, email or online to book all air travel, for which ETH members benefit from a discount for federal offices.
The advantages of booking through Kuster Reisen are:
- Exclusive special fares for air travel by ETH members.
- In the event of cancellation/change of reservations, ETH's travel department will provide assistance.
- Kuster Reisen is a member of the "Guarantee Fund of the Swiss Travel Industry". In case of insolvency of a foreign supplier, the refund of paid but not yet received services is guaranteed.
Environmental footprint
Mobility and air travel are among the major drivers of high greenhouse gas emissions in Switzerland. A good knowledge of the specific greenhouse gas emissions caused by work-related mobility (commuting, business travel) helps you make decisions about your own mobility use.
You can monitor and selectively calculate your emissions caused by mobility and especially by air travel through this selection of footprint calculators from external providers:
- external pageSwiss Climate Challenge mobility app (automated monitoring).
- external pageatmosfair flight emissions calculator
- external pagemyclimate footprint calculator (incl. flight)
- external pageWWF footprint calculator (incl. flight; in German)