Picture this: it is 7 am in Tuba, Benguet, in the mountains of the Philippines. The air smells of damp earth and cut timber. I am holding a piece of bamboo, Bambusa blumeana, locally called “kawayan tinik”, and Edgar Banasan, a master craftsman of the indigenous Kalinga people and one of the last living experts of traditional Kalinga bamboo construction, is showing me exactly where to make the cut.
This is not a classroom. This is not a textbook. This is what sustainable travel looks like when you do it properly.
This summer, I am joining Caukin Studio’s Edaya project in Tuba, Benguet, a three-week design-build workshop in which international participants, local craftspeople, and bamboo specialists co-design and construct a bamboo canopy structure together. The project is rooted in indigenous Filipino architectural principles: elevated structures, deep roof forms, and natural-ventilation design solutions that communities here developed centuries before architects started putting “climate-responsive” on their CVs
I want to be transparent about something uncomfortable. A return flight from the UK to Manila produces roughly 1.3 tonnes of CO₂ per person. Before I board that plane, I will calculate and offset my full footprint through www.myclimate.org. Not as a guilt-erasing trick, carbon offsetting is not a magic wand, but as an honest commitment that this trip will give back more than it takes.
And I believe it will. Here is why.
The Philippines is one of the most climate-vulnerable nations on earth. It faces intensifying typhoons, rising sea levels, and the kind of rapid, poorly planned urbanisation that concrete-and-steel construction makes worse. The UN’s SDG 11 calls for sustainable cities and communities; SDG 13 demands urgent climate action; SDG 12 pushes responsible consumption. Bamboo addresses all three simultaneously. It is the world’s fastest-growing plant; some species grow 91cm in a single day. It requires no replanting after harvest, sequesters carbon as it grows, and produces a structural material that outperforms steel in terms of tensile strength per unit weight. In Benguet, it also grows everywhere. The most sustainable building material in the world is already here.
On the ground, my commitments are specific. I will travel from Manila to Baguio City by coach, not a private transfer. I will eat the local food prepared by the Edaya team from local produce and shop at palengke markets on free days, not at supermarkets that sell imported goods wrapped in plastic. I will carry a filtered reusable water bottle every single day because plastic pollution in Philippine Mountain communities is acute and visible, and consistently refusing it is one of the most honest things I can do.
When I come home, I will present everything I have learned about Kalinga joinery techniques, bamboo structural principles, and climate-responsive passive cooling strategies to my UK architecture cohort. Because the most sustainable thing about this trip is not the bamboo. It is the knowledge that travels back with me, and every building that knowledge changes.
SDGs referenced: 11, 12, 13, 17. Resources: www.myclimate.org, www.caukinstudio.com, www.sdgs.un.org, www.travelhealthpro.org.uk.
