I used to think sustainability meant solar panels and the right light bulb. Something you install. Then I started working in property valuations, walking through buildings decades and sometimes a century apart, assessing what they’re worth. I noticed something. The ones that held their value best weren’t always the newest. Often they were the heritage ones, the places someone had bothered to restore instead of knock down and start again. That stuck with me more than I expected, and it changed how I think about travel too.
There’s a difference between tearing something down because it’s easier and working with what’s already there because it’s worth keeping. I see that constantly in my job. A restored building holds something a demolished one never gives back, and it usually shows in what it’s worth. Travel works the same way. Every trip takes something from a place. Air, water, roads, whatever infrastructure is quietly holding it together while people move through. You can pass through and take from it, or you can go through it the way a good restoration works. Carefully. Adding something back instead of just extracting.
Practically, for me that’s the unglamorous stuff. Flying direct when I can, because a layover is just fuel burnt for nothing. Packing light enough to skip checked bags. Getting the train instead of a taxi the second I land, even when it’s slower. Staying somewhere that isn’t washing your towels every day whether I asked or not. None of it is exciting. It’s just the difference between passing through and actually thinking about what it costs to keep a place standing.
The part I care about more is what I do once I’m there. I’m studying property development because I want to end up building housing for people who land somewhere with basically nothing. International students. New migrants. People with no one to call. So when I travel I notice how a city treats what it already has. Whether the old buildings are being restored or bulldozed for something taller. Whether the trains actually work or everyone’s stuck in traffic. Whether a neighbourhood was built to include people or just move them through. I take more notes than photos, which annoys the people I travel with.
The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals talk about sustainable cities and responsible consumption like policy line items. For me they’re the gap between a trip that leaves a place slightly worse off, and one that leaves you slightly more useful to it when you get home. The same gap between a heritage building left to rot and one someone decided was worth saving.
So if someone asks how I’ll keep my exchange sustainable, I could give you the checklist. Reusable bottle, offset flights, and yes I’ll do those too. But the honest answer is smaller. My job has taught me what it costs to let something decline versus keep it standing. I just want to keep noticing that somewhere further from home.
