Sustainable Travel - Have I Really Reduced My Carbon Footprint and How Much Did It Cost?
I went from Scotland to Italy by public transport to reduce my travel carbon footprint - here is the breakdown of travel emissions and costs.
Background
In Summer 2023 I was made redundant from my job. After a quick panic about the future and realising that my job doesn’t determine my whole personality, I decided to do something I had wanted to do for a long time - go from Scotland to Italy without flying so that I could travel more sustainably. You can read the details about the trip in my previous article.
Emissions breakdown
In the article linked above I outlined the whole journey and the total amount of km travelled by each method of transport. Here’s a summary:
Coach - 2326km
Train - 787km
Ferry - 96km
Car - 10km
For a total of 3,219km travelled by land and sea.
I used the Website Go Climate to calculate my travel footprint. According to Go Climate, 3,219km by plane would produce 805 kg CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent).
This is the breakdown of my CO2e emissions:
Coach - 2326km - 296kg CO2e
Train - 787km - 26kg CO2e
Ferry - 96km - 13kg CO2e
Car - 10km - 2kg CO2e
Total emissions: 337kg CO2e - that’s less than half the emissions I would have produced flying! Great - my plan worked.
Let’s talk about costs
Flying from Edinburgh to Venice takes 2.5 hours and the average cost is between £70-200 depending on the time of the year and whether or not you pay for extra luggage.
For this trip’s cost breakdown, I’m not going to include accommodations. Traveling with a few stops was my choice because I wanted to visit new places and meet up with friends who live in different parts of Europe. It would’ve been necessary to stop overnight in certain occasions, for example for long wait times between coaches, however that wasn’t the case for this trip so I’m only taking into account direct transport costs.
21/08 Edinburgh - Amsterdam - Flixbus £77
22/08 Amsterdam - Groningen - Flixbus £14 - made it longer to visit friends
23/08 Groningen - Amsterdam - Flixbus £14 - made it longer to visit friends
24/08 Amsterdam - Luxembourg - Flixbus £27
26/08 Luxembourg - Basel - Flixbus £28
27/08 Basel - Zurich - train £16
27/08 Zurich - Chur - train £20
28/08 Chur - Tirano - Bernina Express £80 - more expensive because I wanted to take the scenic train through the Swiss Alps
28/08 Tirano - Milan - £10
30/08 Milan - Palmanova - train £36
A total of £320 for 48 hours of travel time in total. As noted above, stopping in Groningen wasn’t necessary, it made the trip a day longer and added £28 in transport. I also chose to take the Bernina Express to go from Switzerland to Italy. Without the scenic route, the train would’ve been £30 cheaper, or a Flixbus ticket would have been about £15. This would take the cost down to about £230 total for transport.
What could’ve made this trip better is a reduction in train ticket prices. I know the trip already had a much lower carbon footprint than taking a plane, however, if I had been able to go everywhere by train rather than coach, my total carbon emissions would’ve been 118kg. 15% of the emissions flying releases on this route.
My conclusions
I loved doing this trip. It has made me realise how much I needed to be in the present moment, and somehow I only discovered this while sitting on a small seat on the first Flixbus from Edinburgh to London for 11 hours. What made sense to me then, is that when you are on a coach or train you have to “just be” and enjoy the ride. You can’t make it go any quicker. Is there traffic? You have to wait. Is the coach late because it was stuck at a previous location? You have to wait. When you go to an airport, everyone is rushing to go through every control as quick as possible, and within hours we could be from one side of Europe to the other, or in just a day (Australian friends, I know that when you do this trip it’s never “just one day” but you know what I mean) we could get to the other side of the world. Airports and air transport are designed for speed and impatience. If possible, I will always try to prioritise slow travel from now on, not only for environmental reasons.
Let me know in the comments what you think about the trip and/or the environmental impact of it, if you have any questions or suggestions! I’d love to read you.