Quantifying the carbon footprint of clinical research activities - measurement tools and methods: a scoping review...

Clinical research is important for advancing medical knowledge, improving patient care, evaluating interventions, and developing new therapies. However, as with many activities, clinical research generates carbon emissions. The impact of rising emissions on the climate means that we need to examine factors that contribute to emission generation, including how these emissions are measured, as well identify mitigation strategies to reduce them. Emissions occur for various reasons, including travel for staff and research participants, the generation and disposal of research equipment, the collection and processing of laboratory samples, and data management. The aim of this review is to better understand how research activity emissions are measured, including which measurement methods and tools are identified, described and categorised..

The review will include searches in seven electronic databases, including health (PubMed, Web of Science, CINAHL and Scopus) and non-health databases (EconBiz, GreenFile, and ProQuest). Primary research studies, as well as peer-reviewed grey literature sources, that may include dissertations and theses, reports, guidelines, case studies, and frameworks relevant to the aim of the review will be eligible for inclusion. Secondary research sources (i.e. reviews; systematic, scoping etc.), as well as non-peer reviewed grey literature will be excluded. Articles written entirely not in English will be excluded as the team do not have the resources to facilitate translation. Screening of titles and abstracts, and full text screening of included articles will be carried out independently by two researchers. A narrative synthesis approach will be taken to analyse the extracted data. Quality appraisal of included studies will not be carried out.

The findings will inform better understanding of methods for measurement and quantification of emissions from reported research activities. Research domains assessed and units of measurement described. These findings can benefit a range of stakeholders, particularly those working within the clinical research environment.