Speaker
Description
Sustainability is an increasing priority for large research infrastructures (RIs), driven by high energy demand, limited material resources, climate objectives, and rising expectations from society and funding agencies. As energy-intensive facilities, RIs must ensure that scientific performance is aligned with responsible environmental practices, supported by robust and comparable methods for sustainability assessment beyond qualitative statements.
This contribution presents a structured framework for evaluating sustainability performance in large RIs. The framework is organized around three core domains: resources, energy, and greenhouse gas emissions, and is articulated through high-level sustainability indicators. Scientific output and operational time are incorporated as normalization and weighting parameters to enable meaningful, context-sensitive comparisons. The framework is proposed as a practical decision-support tool to enhance transparency and support evidence-based sustainability strategies.