A call for funding bodies to influence the reduction of environmental impacts in remote scientific fieldwork

There is a growing consensus in the scientific community that there is a need to reduce the environmental impacts of scientific research, including the observations conducted in the field (Bezanson et al., 2013). Scientists conduct fieldwork in a broad range of disciplines (natural, human, and social sciences). Without fieldwork, there is no primary data to build knowledge for these disciplines, and even though fieldwork is fundamental for research, more and more scientists are gaining awareness of the problems associated with the environmental footprint of their work. Still, they need more effective resources or adequate incentives to assess or reduce it. Researchers' initiatives to quantify, understand and reduce their environmental footprint are growing rapidly in research labs [see, for example, the French Labos 1point5 initiative born in 2019 (Collectif Labos 1.5., 2023)], but these initiatives are carried by the research staff themselves without a framework by the funders. There is a need for the rapid construction of appropriate incentives by funders to implement mitigation measures. The nature of scientific fieldwork often requires working in sensitive environments, far away from the scientists' research laboratories, to understand the changes in the natural environment. Science needs to start prioritizing the reduction of the scientific impact of such fieldwork. This article is a direct call for international, national and local funding bodies to expand their considerations in funding decisions and support researchers in reducing the impact of science on sensitive environments. We propose that this can be achieved in three steps: (a) by requiring environmental impact assessments in the initial grant proposal and considering the relative scientific and environmental impact as well as the adequacy of mitigation measures as additional criteria in funding decisions, (b) by giving researchers the means to finance these measures, and (c) by following up on the status of the project after the fieldwork and evaluating the impact assessment. Regular surveys of the impact of the specific expeditions will further enhance our knowledge and improve the implementation of best practices in the field...