Alongside the essential scientific outputs that particle accelerators provide to the world comes their unique environmental footprint and challenges. The proposed construction of new particle accelerator-based facilities in the coming decades, such as ISIS-II, and upgrades to existing facilities, provides the unique opportunity to embed innovative environmental impact reduction techniques into their design. 

Hannah Wakeling and her colleagues from STFC and the University of Oxford have put together a living document that will provide high-level guidelines to improve environmental sustainability in the planning, construction, operational and decommissioning stages of large accelerator facilities. 

Hannah is a post-doctorate research assistant in particle accelerator sustainability at ISIS and the John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science at the University of Oxford. To put this document together, she has worked with ISIS' John Thomason, Jim Clarke and Ben Shepherd from STFC's Accelerator Science and Technology Centre, Jo Colwell from the STFC Sustainability team, and the University of Oxford's Philip Burrows. 

Together, they have published a Comment in Nature Reviews Physics, introducing the living document to the community. 

“In this Comment, we highlight the need for field-specific environmental sustainability guidelines to tackle the unique challenges associated with particle accelerators," explains Hannah.   

They are calling on the global scientific community to work together on tangible and tailored environmental solutions, developing new techniques and guidelines that bolster their world class research whilst minimising its environmental impacts. 

“We invite everyone to join this conversation and welcome feedback for the next version of the living document," says Hannah.