Studying abroad gives students the opportunity to explore more of the world but comes with a contradiction, that being damage to the planet due to travel. A return flight from London to Seoul has a significant carbon cost (Williams and Noland 2006), more so than I’ll be able to offset in a lifetime of reusable bottles and paper straws which disintegrate in your beverage. I’ve never bought the idea that small habits can cancel out big costs. For me, sustainability isn’t about pretending I’m changing the world, but instead, which costs are mine and how do I reduce them. I am a member of the Green party, which has helped me learn about the real weight of the environmental issue, with no single person causing a huge carbon cost. I think it’s dishonest to pretend otherwise but it doesn’t mean my actions don’t account for anything or that I am unable to make changes, it means I can be consistent about what I can control and do it quietly instead of for credit. I care because I enjoy the outdoors and strongly feel that public green spaces, air quality, and nature in general should be preserved. In Newcastle I walk almost everywhere, and I don’t plan on changing that in Seoul. I’ve picked accommodation near the metro and campus, and am living in a goshiwon, a single room significantly smaller than a western accommodation, using a fraction of the heating, cooling, and electricity. Seoul’s metro system is known to be the most developed in the world, where well placed and connected stations have been seen to increase ridership over car use (Luo, Chen et al. 2025). I’m also staying in Seoul for the year rather than using my placement as a base for regional flights, which is the lowest impact choice I can make once I have made my first flight. Most of my clothing comes from second hand sites like vinted as fast fashion is a serious environmental burden and buying used is the way I avoid feeding into it. This isn’t a habit I’ll abandon in Seoul; South Korea throws away 800,000 tonnes of textiles each year, but its second-hand market is booming recently, set to double its 2021 share (Earth.org.,2025). Everything spoken about maps onto the UN Sustainable Development Goals (Chou 2021). Living car free in a dense, transit heavy city is SDG 11, buying second hand and cutting waste is SDG 12, and being honest about my flight while cutting down on every emission possible after it is my version of SDG 13. None of it is dramatic or world changing, I’m not going to pretend that I can single handedly make a change, but many individuals making similar climate conscious choices definitely can, and so I am choosing to be a part of that.
References
Chou, J.-R. (2021). Sustainability, 13(18), 10012. https://doi.org/10.3390/su131810012
Earth.org (2025). https://earth.org/appearance-is-very-important-the-rise-of-fast-fashion-in-south-korea-and-how-to-stop-it/
Luo et al. (2025). Sustainability, 17(24), 11126. https://doi.org/10.3390/su172411126
Williams & Noland (2006). Environmental Science & Policy, 9(5), 487–495. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2006.03.006
