Somewhere between Stockholm and London, Europe stops being a map and becomes a window: pine trees, ferries, platforms, cables, fields, announcements in languages I almost understand. That is how I want my LSE semester to begin. With a journey that admits distance instead of erasing it.
I study at the Stockholm School of Economics, and my exchange to the London School of Economics is part of CIVICA: a European alliance of ten universities in the social sciences, humanities, business, management and public policy (https://www.civica.eu/what-is-civica/about-civica). I am also part of the CIVICA Engage Track, which makes this personal. Civic engagement cannot only mean speaking well about society. It must also mean noticing the quiet consequences of ordinary choices: how I travel, where I live, what I buy, what I waste.
The UK makes this difficult to ignore. Domestic transport accounted for 31% of UK emissions in 2025, and petrol and diesel road use remained the main source within that sector (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/provisional-uk-greenhouse-gas-emissions-statistics-2025/2025-uk-greenhouse-gas-emissions-provisional-figures-statistical-release). LSE’s own sustainability guidance also encourages lower-carbon choices such as rail, walking, cycling and public transport where practical (https://info.lse.ac.uk/staff/divisions/estates-division/sustainable-lse/what-we-do/transport). So my plan starts before term starts: travel Stockholm–Copenhagen–Hamburg–Brussels–London by train where practically possible, then share the route honestly afterwards: cost, time, delays, emissions estimate and what I would do differently.
In London, I have rented an apartment close to the city centre so my everyday radius can stay small. I am committed to buying a refurbished bicycle rather than a new one, and I plan to move mostly by cycling, walking, buses and the Tube. A central flat is not only about convenience; it is about creating an infrastructure for better habits. Fewer taxis. Fewer excuses. More ordinary low-carbon days.
The UN Sustainable Development Goals give my semester a compass. SDG 13, Climate Action, sits in the train ticket and the refusal to fly for weekends (https://sdgs.un.org/goals). SDG 11, Sustainable Cities and Communities, is visible in the bicycle, the walk to campus and London’s public transport (https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal11). SDG 12, Responsible Consumption and Production, means arriving light, buying second-hand, carrying a bottle and lunchbox, repairing before replacing, and using Too Good To Go and OLIO so food is rescued rather than wasted. SDG 17, Partnerships, is the CIVICA link: I will share a “Green Exchange Receipt” with SSE and LSE peers, using Interrail, Eurostar, Citymapper and the WWF Footprint Calculator as practical tools.
I do not claim that my semester will be clean. It will use heat, electricity, food, data and space. But I can make its footprint visible, reduced and learnable.
A semester abroad should change more than my transcript. If I return from London with sharper ideas, a worn second-hand bike and a route another student dares to copy, then the exchange will have travelled further than I did.
