The first time I really started questioning sustainable travel was during a youth political seminar in Colombia. Around one hundred participants gathered to discuss climate change, sustainability, and renewable energy, yet roughly ninety percent of us had flown in from Western Europe. The irony was striking. The flight itself felt impossible to ignore, because the environmental cost of simply arriving stood in tension with the very topics we were there to discuss.
At that time, I realised something important. If that journey was to make sense, it could only be justified if the ideas shared there did not remain in that room, but were carried forward into action afterwards. Sustainability, in that sense, is not only about how we travel, but about what we do with the knowledge, connections, and responsibility we take with us when we leave.
This understanding has stayed with me, also through my experience in student communities in Amsterdam. While working within the Erasmus Student Network, I helped restart and restructure a volunteering programme, called SocialErasmus. We organized initiatives such as a clothing swap to reduce consumption and waste, and a tree planting activity with local partners. These experiences showed me how sustainability becomes real when it is shared socially, through collective action rather than individual intention alone.
This work alignes with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, specifically those focused on inclusive communities, climate action, and wellbeing. It reinforced my belief that sustainability is not only environmental, but deeply social. It depends on how people connect, how they organise together, and how responsibility is shared within communities. Collective action is not separate from sustainability; it is one of its main driving forces.
Across both experiences, I saw the same pattern. In Colombia, we gathered in a international setting to discuss global sustainability challenges we all took back to our home countires. In Amsterdam, I saw how those ideas could be translated into practice when students were given space to act together. In both cases, student communities were the starting point, but their value came from what they enabled beyond themselves.
For my exchange in Warsaw, I want to continue this work by organising sustainability-focused discussion evenings on climate solutions, clothing swap events, and collaborative volunteering activities with local organisations focused on urban green spaces and community support.
Ultimately, I believe that student communities are where sustainable ideas can emerge through shared reflection and social connection, but their true impact lies in what they inspire beyond them. Sustainable change starts in these communities, but grows through collective action that extends into wider society.
