Outer Space Institute supports Net Zero Space Initiative

18 July 2022

The Outer Space Institute (OSI) is a network of world-leading space experts united by their commitment to highly innovative, transdisciplinary research that addresses grand challenges facing the continued use and exploration of space.

The Net Zero Space Initiative was launched at the 4th edition of the Paris Peace Forum in November 2021. It calls for “a global commitment to achieving sustainable use of outer space for the benefit of all humankind by 2030.” It also recommends urgent action immediately “to rapidly contain and then reduce the ongoing pollution of Earth’s orbital environment by avoiding further generation of hazardous space debris, and by remediating existing hazardous space debris.”

The OSI supports the Net Zero Space Initiative through research on sustainability challenges of space mining, satellite mega-constellations, cislunar space development, and abandoned rocket bodies. It has coordinated the adoption of the Salt Spring Recommendations on Space Debris and the Vancouver Recommendations on Space Mining. It has also developed widely-supported “International Open Letters” in support of a multilateral approach to regulating space mining, as well as a ban on the testing of kinetic anti-satellite weapons.

Further research, recommendations, and policy advocacy by the Outer Space Institute, in parallel and in partnership with the Paris Peace Forum, will maintain and strengthen this support in the future.