Sustainability-4-HRI, HRI-4-Sustainability

Paper in proceeding, 2025

'Sustainability -4- HRI, HRI -4-Sustainability' offers hands-on engagement with the HRI 2025 conference theme, 'Robots for a Sustainable World'. This workshop will explore the relationship between HRI and sustainable development and stimulate discussion on how we can make our own research practices more sustainable. We propose a full-day workshop, featuring morning discussions with sustainability experts and activists, and an afternoon hands-on activity aimed at understanding how robotics research can help in creating sustainable futures. We will broadly answer the following questions: How can we, as robotic researchers, help address sustainable development responsibly? Equally, how can we ensure that our HRI research practices minimises ecological footprints and operates within ethical and sustainable frameworks? We envision two practical outcomes of this workshop: a 'sustainability statement' that can be submitted together with future HRI research papers, and a paper gathering insights and reflections from the workshop. We welcome researchers and students at any career stage and from any subfield of HRI to attend and contribute.