Impact

Taking the train: from Bucharest to Vienna in 20 hours

At NGO Academy, one of our goals is to keep our CO₂ footprint as small as possible – which isn’t always easy, considering that our member organisations have to travel distances as far as from Chișinău to Vienna. However, we generally encourage our members to choose means of transportation that are less hurtful to our environment. When we heard that Stefania from Ateliere Fara Frontiere decided to take the train from Bucharest to Vienna and back we were above all impressed: we’re talking of a total distance of over 2.000 kilometers! But Stefania had a nice take on the benefits of her decision not to fly to the NGO Academy workshop “From offline storytelling to stage presence: Learn how to give a talk worth listening to”.

“It took about 20 hours to go from Bucharest to Vienna instead of a few hours, but I got to meet new people, enjoy the view of nature that I normally never see, and did some office work on the go. In a fast-pacing society, slowing down feels like a little act of rebellion and very self-soothing. The 40 hours in total were wisely used to absorb the workshop NGO Academy offered on how to give a talk worth listening to. Always glad to join like-minded people!”

We used this chance and had a look at what difference it makes in terms of CO₂ emissions depending on whether you travel to Vienna by train/bus or airplane and were surprised by the figures. For 1.000 kilometers travelled, the emissions per person with a bus lay around 31kg of CO₂, with a train it’s around 36kg – and with a plane its 250kg. We’re aware that not everyone has the time to choose ground transport over air transport, but hope that those figures help us all to make a more consicous decision in the future!

A big thank you to Stefania for sharing some words on her experience and pictures with us. If you have a similar story about travelling to one of our programmes – whether by, bus, train or by carpooling with other members, we’d be happy to hear from you!