Celebrating Earth Day: Recognizing The Impact of Travel on the Environment  

April 17, 2024 Steph Sadler

We’re grateful to have attended two impactful sessions at The Forum on Education Abroad about climate change, carbon emissions, and sustainability in study abroad. Topics of environmental concern are often the elephant in the room when it comes to travel, so opportunities to share information openly and have conversations like these are crucial to inspire change.

The first session, presented by Carlo Fabros from Student Universe and Melissa Lee from The Green Project was titled, “We Admit We Emit.” The second session was location-specific, but also with far-reaching lessons: “Tackling the Big Questions of Sustainability and Study Abroad: Perspectives from Ireland” with presenters Sara Dart from Education in Ireland, Karl Dowling from Big Pond Education, Katherine Martin and Jack O’Connor from the University of Limerick, and Enda Carroll from University College Dublin.

Our Program Operations Manager, Maddie Reeves, shared her takeaways with the rest of the team. “We will never be able to say that the field of study abroad is completely innocent in contributing to climate change,” she said. “However, there are ways of offsetting and EDUCATING students (and ourselves) on how to make more climate-conscious decisions when traveling and studying abroad.”

Here are a couple of the topics these conference sessions brought to the forefront of our minds and a few of the questions we are contemplating seriously as a team:

How can we think creatively about carbon offsetting payments when students are already scraping pennies to study abroad? How can our pre-departure and in-country programming lift up this issue and help students understand its gravity while also helping them to reflect and take actionable steps to mitigate their own carbon footprints?
How can we be more sustainable in each of our different locations, and how can we contribute to carbon offsetting in specific program locations to better connect the students to the effort and experience? Related to this, during the conference presentations, we expanded our knowledge of Carbon Colonialism – where rich countries essentially export their climate breakdown to developing countries. This is a topic on which we will dive deeper and continue to educate ourselves.
How can we engage students abroad with the local community early on? Doing so can help with immersion, but also the environment. It encourages students to put down roots, get involved in campus groups, and volunteer locally which may inspire them to explore more regionally by train or bus rather than taking a plane to a new country every weekend.

Knowledge is power. We are committed to learning. We are committed to educating. We are committed to playing our role in constructing opportunities for greater sustainability in study abroad.

As a small start, here are some thoughts we – ourselves, the faculty who are leading programs, and our students – can keep in mind:

10 Ways We can Travel More Sustainably, and Encourage Students to do the Same

1. OFFSET YOUR CARBON EMISSIONS. Calculate your carbon emissions from international flights through a tool like ICAO. To the extent that you can afford to, use this information to fund a carbon offsetting project in your host destination for local impact or buy carbon offsets through a website like Cool Effect.

2. TRAVEL LIGHTLY. Walk or cycle whenever possible; take public transportation when not. If you decide to take a weekend trip or travel onward during a break week, consider whether taking a bus or a train instead of flying could be part of your adventure.

3. RE-USE. A few easy examples: Bring your reusable water bottle and coffee cup when you leave your accommodation. Take your cloth bag when you go shopping. Use your towels more than once.

4. THOUGHTFULNESS MATTERS. Take shorter showers, turn off lights and electronics, and consider hanging up clothes to air dry rather than using a dryer (which may be the norm where you’re headed anyway!). Think twice before printing anything. You can consider some of the products you use too. For example, can you switch to bar soap/shampoo to lessen plastic use? Take your own headphones to use on the plane. Leave no trace as you travel.

5. CHOOSE LOCAL, SEASONAL FOODS. Think about where your food comes from and make conscious choices. Head to the market for fresh, local, seasonal produce rather than buying from chain supermarkets. Choose restaurants that make a point of choosing seasonal and regional products for their dishes.

6. SUPPORT SUSTAINABLE LOCAL BUSINESSES. Be mindful of where you shop when you’re abroad. Wherever possible, support craftspeople you can buy from directly for souvenirs and locally-owned businesses—especially those who value and practice sustainability in their work.

7. VOLUNTEER. Take a day or two (or more if you’re abroad longer term) to get involved in a local initiative that supports the environment such as a beach clean-up, tree planting, working in a community garden, or taking part in a local conservation project.

8. PRACTICE SLOW TRAVEL. Really get to know your host location intimately instead of ticking countries off of a bucket list. Explore (and live) locally as much as possible! Find places to walk and hike. Le Vie di Dante, which follows the footsteps of the poet, won the Lonely Planet “Best in Travel 2021” sustainability category for Florence, but examples like these can be found in many places.

9. EDUCATE YOURSELF. Learn more about climate change in general, but more specifically about the actions your host country or city is taking to improve their commitment to the environment. Continuing with Florence as an example, this could mean learning about climate-friendly projects in development using REACT-EU funding that will help push the city toward the sustainability targets set out for Europe.

10. RECYCLE OR DONATE. At the end of your trip, there may be items you don’t wish to bring home. To help reduce waste and make things more affordable for incoming groups, you may be able to leave behind items like utensils, dishes, blankets, bags, school supplies, seasonal clothes, etc. Be sure to dispose of any other items sustainably by recycling or donating to a local charity.

“While we recognize that study abroad inherently has a large carbon footprint due to the need for air travel in most cases, I walked away from the Forum Conference confident that there are many things that we can do in this field to help mitigate our impact on the environment and raise awareness about making more sustainable choices abroad among faculty and student travelers,” Maddie said. “Getting to hear from so many passionate colleagues about their individual and institutional efforts in combating climate change gave me a lot of hope and inspiration. I cannot wait to continue to evaluate and implement sustainable initiatives within programming here at EdOdyssey!”