Sustainability at The Company of Biologists
As a not-for-profit publisher, our activities reach far beyond the publication of five leading peer-reviewed journals. We exist to support and inspire biologists and do this by also facilitating scientific meetings and communities, providing travel grants for young researchers, and funding research societies. Our initiatives include the international scientific community and while we work hard to fulfil our mission, we are committed to ensuring our environmental impact is kept to a minimum.
We are aiming to make sustainability a consideration in everything we do. This is an ongoing process – we have already taken some important steps towards increasing our sustainability efforts and more plans are in the making. On this page you can learn more about some of our initiatives to date.
Sustainable Conferencing Initiative
Launched in 2020, the Sustainable Conferencing Initiative provides guidance and support on the sustainability of events, and offers insights on technologies that can be used for virtual and hybrid events.
A dedicated website provides relevant blogs and resources to help set up sustainable events, as well as a discussion forum for the community to exchange ideas and experiences.
Sustainable Conferencing Grants
Organisers of a variety of events can apply for the new Sustainable Conferencing Grant, which offers up £2,500 to assist with the cost of innovative ideas that will allow events to become more sustainable.
Investments
The Company of Biologists is currently pursuing a policy of divestment from companies actively extracting fossil fuels. Present actions will progressively reduce such investments to little more than 1% of the total value of the portfolio. We aim to move to ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) compliant investments.