Box 2.

Steps to tackle environmental costs of neuroscience research.

• Quantify. Identify and evaluate the climate and ecological costs of your research. Push suppliers and manufacturers to evaluate and share the environmental impacts of their products via life-cycle assessments. The first step to action is often to understand the scale of impacts. • Laboratory Practices. Integrate sustainable lab practices into your research. This includes but is not limited to increasing reuse of consumables, managing equipment in a more sustainable manner, and managing samples and chemical stockpiles. Ensure laboratory practices integrate quality control, to improve conditions for reproducible research. Consider doing this via an accreditation scheme such as LEAF. • Liquid helium for MRI and MEG scanners. Helium is a by-product of fossil fuel extraction. Install a helium recycling tank for MEG to capture boil-off and support development of new non-helium methods such as OPM-MEG. • Computing demands for data analysis and modelling. Run only analyses and models that you need to, optimise modelling to minimise energy costs, and avoid running jobs at peak times for energy demand. • Resource usage. Consider carefully how much data to acquire, analyse, store, and share. Reduce storage of unnecessary files, regularly clean up data, remove intermediary processing stages, and consider how much needs to be stored long term. • Data sharing. Where possible, use an open science repository that runs on renewable energy, such as the Open Science Framework. • Slow science. Focus on quality over quantity, in line with ‘slow science’ principles (Frith, 2020). • Engage peers. Raise awareness of impacts and contribute to community actions to establish best practices where this is currently unknown, such as through the Organization for Human Brain Mapping’s Sustainability and Environment Action Group. The ClimateActionNeuPsych Slack group provides a forum to discuss among colleagues and share best practices in, for example, teaching, conferences, laboratory practice, and institutional policy.

MRI: magnetic resonance imaging, MEG: magnetoencephalography, OPM-MEG: Optically Pumped Magnetometer magnetoencephalography.