Day one: meeting in person for the first time

We’re a climate tech company, so it felt right to start this chapter the way we mean to continue: by paying attention to the emissions we create along the way.

The journey

The trip started on the ÖBB Nightjet from Vienna to Brussels — couchette, suitcase, the whole scene — and continued on the Eurostar into London.

A direct flight from Vienna to London would have put roughly 180 kg of CO₂ on my personal ledger for this one-way trip (typical economy figures from industry calculators). The rail combination came in at around 30 kg — mostly the night train leg, with Eurostar adding only a few kilograms per passenger on its electric service.

That’s about 150 kg of CO₂ avoided — roughly 85% less — for a journey that was quieter, more comfortable, and honestly more fun than cramming into an airport at dawn. We track this kind of thing for a living; it would have been odd not to do it for ourselves.

London, and meeting Samira

Today marks the beginning of a new chapter. Viktor has relocated to London to build a Carbon13 climate tech startup together with Samira Richardson, MBA, MRes.

We had worked together remotely for a few weeks. Meeting in person at Buckingham Palace on 24 June — sun, tourists, and two people who couldn’t stop grinning — made the move feel real.

Reset Connect

That same afternoon we headed to Reset Connect London — the UK’s award-winning sustainability and net zero event, and a flagship of London Climate Action Week. Investors, founders, and corporates under one roof, all trying to turn climate ambition into something you can actually measure and reduce.

Samira was already deep in conversation before we’d finished finding our bearings.

Day one was trains, co-founders, and a conference floor full of people who care about the same problem we do. We’re just getting started — and we’ll keep sharing the journey here.