Hållbarhet 2009
Home > Projects > Sustainable Travel?

Sustainable Travel?

For carbon-conscious change agents working in the sustainability field, the decision to convene and travel to this learning journey is one we have not taken lightly. To be transparent about our decision-making below we have outlined our strategic perspective on human travel and the rationale behind our event.

Backcasting from Success

  • Limiting human travel is often debated as a solution to climate change and in some cases the credibility of sustainability professionals has been questioned (see ”Jet-setting scientists responsible for substantial greenhouse gas emissions”). However both a systems perspective and a goal are needed before it is possible to assess the merits of any action. Given our goal of working toward a sustainable society, what is the most sensible thing to do in the short, medium and longer term?
  • Its within this context that we have assessed the need for our event and alternative ways of achieving our purpose. Our intent has been to dematerialize and substitute resources to meet our objectives with the lowest possible impact.
  • To read more about our strategic prioritizatin for the event read: event backcasting.

Avoid reductionism through simplistic choices

  • Those in our network understand that impacts might be justified if they lead to beneficial outcomes on the journey toward sustainability. We can also reduce our overall impact in other ways than just limiting travel provided we understand the orders of magnitude to make informed choices.
  • Altering our food and diet choices, our decisions at work, our lifestyle etc can lead to much larger sustainability outcomes. These decisions are left to each individual.
  • Enriching people or potatoes? - If we examine all the benefits of social and cultural interaction from human travel in comparison to the benefits of swapping food and beverages between countries for lifestyle reasons, it is clear that there are other priorities to address within global transportation systems.
  • It can be argued that human travel is in fact needed to build understanding and capacity for subsequent action toward sustainability - provided it takes place with sustainability impacts and objectives in mind.

Rethink Mobility

  • Given our purpose, we do not think there is an alternative to some form of physical gathering involving at least some members of our network. It has not formally occurred for five years.
  • Australia provides a good setting for a sustainability learning journey. It is arguably the first industrialized nation to face significant climate-related challenges and is also one with the innovation potential and wealth to act. Valuable lessons can be drawn from this context.
  • Our network is global and to meet physically anywhere in the world is going to require travel. While we have not done a detailed analysis of the most ‘carbon-efficient’ destination, we have had multiple objectives and left it to those in our network to make their own choices on where to travel.
  • A number of regional events are being organized. Collectively our gatherings will provide valuable learning opportunities with a smaller overall footprint than convening everyone in the one location.
  • We will use of web technologies to connect with regional events and some of our guests will also be joining us via web technology.
  • Our legacy project is intended to allow everyone in our network to contribute in some form, regardless of whether they are in a position to travel to one of the events.

Make the most of the trip

  • The event allows for multiple objectives to be met – reunion, learning journey, tourism – a significant gain over someone travelling to Australia on a holiday alone.
  • The itinerary itself has been designed with a balance between sustainability visits, opportunities for networking, travel tourism, learning and sharing workshops and space for reflection on our objectives.
  • In much the same way that Sustainable Sweden Tours generate significant momentum and interest around the world, we believe sharing our Swedish-inspired education on sustainability can help to kick-start and build further momentum for sustainability initiatives in Australia.

Take the route with the lowest impact

  • Those in our network share a similar mindset on travel and are working in their own way to minimize their travel impact. Our shining example is Andrew Outhwaite who is undertaking a 3 month overland journey from London to Sydney – read more about it here.
  • In our choice of flights we have been conscious of reducing the impact through the most direct alternatives (e.g. Flying Europe to Sydney, overland travel to Melbourne, flying Melbourne to Europe).

Switch Travel Modes

  • It goes without saying that public transport and other forms of travel pooling are a way to reduce travel impacts. This consideration has influenced event mobility planning.

Support Alternative Fuel Sources

  • We have deliberately chosen to use biofuel mini-buses for the learning journey. This choice is made with full awareness of the need for sustainable sourcing of biofuels. This issue is something we will explore together. In fact, some of those attending the learning journey work in this field and have published research promoting a systems perspective of fuel choices using sustainability principles to deal with the food vs fuel trade-off.

Offset our impact

  • Offsetting is not a solution in itself and we are aware of the risk of it being perceived as such. However, in the short-term we believe it can be part of a carbon management strategy and can provide other benefits. Read more here.

Promote a broader perspective

  • We hope that by publishing and sharing our perspective on strategic travel we can prompt discussion and a wider perspective on mobility in the context of sustainable development.