Thinking and acting creatively for greater sustainability in academic conference tourism

Abstract

Creative thinking is crucial to address the sustainability challenge of academic conferences. Adopting a creativity lens, we explored the low-carbon initiatives and actions associated with an organizational studies conference in Italy. We relied on an action research approach that involved implementing one of the initiatives included in the study, interviews with key informants, and secondary data. Considering the features and the creative thinking underlying the initiatives and actions, we identified six major themes: three relying on inside-the-box thinking and three on outside-the-box thinking. This study highlights the opportunity to integrate the debate about scientific conferences and sustainability with considerations about academic well-being and suggests that academic conferences can be used as arenas for experimenting with sustainability projects. The impact of the study relates to the introduction of new ideas in the context of an academic conference, the reduction of CO2 emissions by some conference attendees and the prototype of an alternative way to hold conferences.