A community-guided discussion about social and environmental effects of post-COVID-19 Computer Science conferencing

Conferencing is one of the main pillars of Computer Science research activity regarding career and networking, with conference publications playing a more pronounced role compared to other disciplines. The COVID-19 pandemic forced us to switch to virtual conferencing, and many works have shown the benefits of virtual conferencing in terms of inclusivity and reduction of Green House Gas emissions. We are moving toward the usual conferencing format as it appears that the pandemic is increasingly under control. However, the changes imposed during the period of the pandemic brought many essential lessons regarding conferencing social and environmental effects. A crucial task is to gather these community experiences to give directions on how to keep the learned lessons post-COVID-19. We used the Euro-Par conference to synthesize these lessons in the Computer Science case. We show practical results that reinforce the marginal emissions of virtual conferencing compared to in-person conference travel. We also open the debate that rethinking the conference utility according to our objectives (scientific and ecologic) and being aware of social/geographical biases are essential factors in participating and organizing post-COVID-19 conferences