Day 0 — Exeter Airport, 6:56am
I’m sitting in the departure lounge with a coffee I probably didn’t need and a carry-on I’ve repacked three times. In eleven hours I’ll land in Tokyo. What I do know is that getting here comes with a cost — a return flight emits around 2.5 tonnes of CO₂ per passenger, roughly six months of average UK driving. I’m a Sports Science student, not an environmental scientist, but even I know that number matters.
I’m not going to pretend the flight is fine. It isn’t. But SDG 13 on Climate Action doesn’t ask for perfection — it asks for awareness and honesty about the gap between intention and action. So that’s what I’m trying to do: go with my eyes open and bring something useful back.
What drew me to Tokyo was how much it contradicted my assumptions. I expected an energy-hungry megacity and found the opposite. Tokyo’s per-capita emissions are less than half of London’s, for a city five times the size, already committed to net-zero by 2050. I want to see SDG 11 — Sustainable Cities — up close, not just cited in a lecture slide.
Getting around won’t be a problem. Tokyo’s rail network runs at 99.9% punctuality on increasingly clean energy, and its coverage is so comprehensive that owning a car feels pointless. I’ve set up Suica for travel and Hyperdia for routes — as someone who spends lectures analysing GPS movement data, the precision genuinely appeals to me.
Japan has a packaging problem though — individually wrapped fruit, plastic bags handed out without thinking. SDG 12 means I can’t admire the rail network and ignore the rest. I’ve packed a furoshiki cloth and a filtered bottle to avoid buying plastic constantly, and I’ll track my habits weekly through Giki.
When I get back I’m signing up to Exeter’s Study Abroad Buddy Scheme. The next student heading to Tokyo will have questions — about the furoshiki trick, the rail network, how 7-Eleven Japan is tackling food waste. Not a lecture. Just one student telling another what they wish they’d known before they boarded.
Four minutes to boarding. Here we go.
1. Atmosfair (2024) Flight Emissions Calculator. Available at: https://www.atmosfair.de/en/offset/flight/
2. Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (2023) Greenhouse Gas Reporting: Conversion Factors 2023. GOV.UK. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/greenhouse-gas-reporting-conversion-factors-2023
3. Tokyo Metropolitan Government (2023) Tokyo’s Climate Change Strategy: Carbon Half by 2030. Available at: https://www.kankyo.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/
4. C40 Cities (2023) Tokyo City Profile: Sustainable Urban Development. Available at: https://www.c40.org/cities/tokyo/
5. Hyperdia (2024) Japan Route and Timetable Planner. Available at: https://www.hyperdia.com/en/
6. Suica — JR East (2024) IC Card Travel in Tokyo. Available at: https://www.jreast.co.jp/e/pass/suica.html
7. Giki Badges (2024) Sustainability Tracker App. Available at: https://giki.earth/giki-zero-the-app-that-helps-you-learn-what-you-can-do-for-the-planet/
8. United Nations (2015) Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Available at: https://sdgs.un.org/goals
9. Seven & i Holdings (2025) Measures against Food Loss and Organic Waste Recycling. Available at: https://www.7andi.com/en/sustainability/theme/theme3/recycle.html
10. University of Exeter (2026) Study and Work Abroad Buddy Scheme. Available at: https://www.exeter.ac.uk/study/studyabroad/outbound/research/buddy/
