I’ve just returned from a short trip up to the southern Gold Coast to spend the Easter break with my family. It’s a trip I make about once a year to hug my parents, play with my niece and spend some quality time with the kind of old friends who have become family.

I missed out on a window seat this trip, so instead of spending the flight more-or-less glued to the window, watching the landscape unfolding below, I got to thinking about my travels in the context of sustainability

Easter sunset on the southern Gold Coast

Travel: it broadens the mind, feeds the soul and strengthens the bonds of family and friendship. What’s not to love about it? Well, environmentally-speaking not a lot!

Air travel is the single biggest contributor to my carbon footprint. This trip alone generated roughly 306 kg of CO₂ (source: International Civil Aviation Organisation carbon offset calculator). I also make one or two trips to Melbourne each year to catch up with friends and to dip my toe back into the rushing current of modern life: a much-needed perspective check when you live in a beautiful but isolated backwater like Tasmania. That’s around 172 kg CO₂ per trip.

This year I’m also heading off overseas for the first time in 6 years. I’m heading off to South America for a few weeks to experience new cultures and explore remarkable environments like Machu Picchu and the Atacama Desert. Getting there and back again? A whopping 1 994 kg of CO₂!

For flights booked so far this year I’m clocking up a total of 2 563 kg of CO₂ (and that’s without any business travel).

Losing myself in Melbourne’s marvellous alleyways

My annual carbon footprint without flights comes in at around 5 tonnes (source: CarbonFootprint.com), so my flights add another 50% to my impact, bumping it up to 7.6 tonnes CO₂ p.a. – that’s not a good number. So flying is definitely bad from the carbon emissions perspective, putting a big black mark in the environmental component of my sustainability score. Does that mean I shouldn’t fly? What about all the benefits of my travels?

Living a sustainable life means making choices that also look after my mental and physical health, build strong social networks and interpersonal relationships and live a life that inspires, challenges and enriches me. Travel provides an excellent way to meet many of my personal objectives. My social and personal benefits of travel include:

• Maintaining family relationships
• Building and strengthening my friendships and support networks
• Growing my awareness and understanding of other cultures and ways of doing things
• Inspiring personal change and global thinking
• Learning from others and from the experiences travel provides
• Developing a greater appreciation of the world, its environments and cultures

These are all good things, for sure, but are they enough to balance out the environmental costs? Are there other ways I could gain the benefits of travel without the CO₂ emissions? I really don’t know.

What I do know is that I enjoy travel and everything it brings, and that means I’m probably going to find ways to justify keeping on flying, but perhaps I can travel a little smarter…

Better ways to travel:

• Flying less often (and making more use of Skype)
• Choosing closer destinations and non-stop flights
• Travelling by bus or train where possible and reasonably practical
• Paying extra for airline carbon offsets – does this accomplish anything? Perhaps a blog topic for another day!
• Tying overseas trips to environmental or social volunteer work

How do you reconcile your ideals with your impacts? What are your ideas for managing the impacts of travel?