Green Neuroscience
The BNA is committed to supporting a more environmentally sustainable future for neuroscience. As a membership organisation, we recognise both our responsibility to reduce the environmental impact of our own activities and our role in helping the wider neuroscience community adopt more sustainable practices.
Environmental sustainability is increasingly important for the future of research. By sharing knowledge, encouraging good practice and working with partners across the sector, we aim to support a neuroscience community that delivers world-leading research while reducing its environmental footprint.
Leading by example
We are embedding sustainability into the way we work as an organisation and the way we deliver our activities.
This includes taking practical steps to reduce the environmental impact of our events, considering sustainability in our operational decisions, and encouraging lower-carbon approaches wherever possible. Recent initiatives have included supporting hybrid participation at the Festival of Neuroscience, encouraging sustainable travel where appropriate, and offering lower-carbon catering options at BNA events.
As we continue to develop our activities, sustainability remains an important consideration in how we support our members and deliver our programmes.
[Insert sustainability reports from 2023 & 2025]
Supporting sustainable research
Research can have a significant environmental impact through energy use, laboratory operations, travel and the consumption of materials. We want to help neuroscientists identify practical ways to reduce this impact while maintaining research excellence.
We support initiatives that promote sustainable laboratory practice, encourage efficient use of resources and enable researchers to share ideas and examples of best practice. By highlighting successful approaches from across the neuroscience community, we hope to make sustainable research easier to adopt across different organisations and disciplines.
Our members are also contributing to the evidence base for sustainable neuroscience. In Brain and Neuroscience Advances, researchers explored why the climate and ecological crisis matters for neuroscientists and outlined practical actions that individuals, laboratories and institutions can take to reduce the environmental impact of research.
Looking to reduce your labs carbon emissions? Participate in the LEAF initiative.
Working with the neuroscience community
Creating lasting change requires collective action. The BNA works with researchers, institutions, funders and partner organisations to encourage discussion about environmental sustainability and to share knowledge across the neuroscience community.
We also recognise the growing evidence that climate change can affect brain health and neurological conditions. Understanding these impacts, alongside reducing the environmental footprint of neuroscience itself, will remain an important part of building a sustainable future for neuroscience.