Consider This When You're Organising A Press Trip

Image by Josh Nezon

I was impressed last week when a press trip invite landed in my inbox offering to pay for journalists to travel to the exhibition (Norwegian Presence) in Oslo by train. Agency Zetteler emailed to say the team would be travelling to London to Oslo by train (already earning my respect as fellow environmentalists) and invited journalists to join them on the adventure, throwing in a link to Seat 61 and outlining that from London it would be 3-day, 2-night stop-over journey via Paris, Brussels and Copenhagen. Flagging up that they had partnered with Byway Travel to manage the whole journey for everyone, no matter where they were travelling from (not all journalists live in London), they even said if people wanted to come by any other means of public transport, they would cover that too.

Bravo team Zetterler. Readers of this newsletter will probably know this would capture my attention. I've flown once (when I suddenly had to leave Berlin when borders were closing in the midst of the pandemic) since 2018, when I really started to understand the climate emergency we're in. I understand this isn't possible for everyone (what with families and relationships abroad), but for me, I think now I will only fly if there's no other way to get there, really (anyone else fancy travelling to America by cargo ship?!).

The invite came on the back of a story I just wrote about people giving up flying. Funnily enough I was invited to a press trip to Nigeria the very next day.

Now I know many journalists will still fly to go on press trips but I do know some people are reducing their flights. I think if you're going to invite hacks abroad at least offer to cover alternative means of getting there. There's lots of talk from companies about how they're trying to be green etc, and a lot of it is greenwashing, but actually stepping up and offering an alternative to flying just proves how much you truly mean it.

Also, I wrote about this initiative a few years back but while I'm here, it's worth mentioning Climate Perks, a scheme that works with climate-conscious employers to offer at least two paid “journey days” per year to staff who travel on holiday by train, coach or boat instead of flying. Perhaps one to encourage your company to sign up to.

Thanks for reading.
Susie