Opinion: Mark Bibby Jackson on green Vienna

SUSTAINABILITY in Vienna

Mark Bibby Jackson takes a walk on the green side of the city and discovers IKEA leading the way

The urban garden centre in the Rudolfsheim Fünfhaus area in the 15th District is one of several wonderful regenerative tourism initiatives that Selin Altan Huber has shown us on her tour of sustainable Vienna as part of Austria Guides for the Future.

The building that used to stand here was demolished in March 2020. When Selin and her colleagues heard that there was no budget to build a replacement building, they stepped in to develop the garden centre, which is basically a squat – they only pay for the water.

Selin and her seven-year-old son have a small plot of land in which they grow vegetables – chilli, aubergine, basil, pumpkin and courgette. Elsewhere there is a bar, and at weekends they have a flea market.

It is a fantastic example of community involvement, regenerating an area which has become run down, or in this case forgotten, and creating something living and most importantly green. In June the urban garden centre won a Smart City Vienna award.

A great example of the district’s ambitious approach to green urban regeneration is Sponge Street; on the surface a nondescript street but under it water is captured as if with a sponge and used to feed the trees.

Along the street are small gardens, where residents plant herbs and flowers to encourage biodiversity in a form of city rewilding. Selin explains that originally the urban gardeners receive a grant from the authorities, but after that the cost of maintenance is the responsibility of the residents – creating a win-win situation.

Part of the transformation of the area was due to the arrival of IKEA, which opened a store in the district in September 2021.

The IKEA Building is the only one in the world, according to Selin, with no parking spaces – customers have to walk, bike or take public transport. IKEA planted 160 trees, mainly on its roof with spectacular views of the city, which has made a substantial benefit to the local environment. Some of the trees have even been adopted by local primary school kids.

Around the centre, on local streets, parking has been converted into green spaces as the whole area is being greened.

The area also has one of the greenest hotels in the world. The Stadthalle Boutique Hotel has been zero energy since 2009. The hotel is the first urban hotel to have a zero energy balance, which it achieves through a combination of photovoltaics and solar energy.

Selin showed us around the beautiful internal green courtyard with its living walls. If you’re staying in the hotel, I recommend booking a room with a view of the lavender roof garden, which is apparently very popular with the local bee and butterfly population. charitable.travel/travel-beginsat-40

SELIN ALTAN HUBER

WHY I donate...

A keen runner, Kieran Alger ran the length of the Danube river to raise money for impoverished children around the world. At a length of 1,770 miles, it was a marathon a day for 67 days…

I’ve been running for about 13 years or so and during that time it’s given me the opportunity to chase my dreams. I wanted to give that same chance to children who don’t have as many opportunities, so once I’d realised running the length of the Danube might just be doable, I picked a mix of charities that help support underprivileged children. The charities I raised money for were Starfish Greathearts Foundation, which helps orphaned and vulnerable children in South Africa; Save the Children, which works in over 100 countries to make sure children are fed, learning and treated fairly; UNICEF UK, whose mission is to help every child realise their full potential; FARA Foundation, which works with abandoned and vulnerable children in Romania; and Magic Breakfast, which provides breakfasts to children at risk of hunger in disadvantaged areas of the UK.

I grew up in a family that didn’t have loads of money and now having my own young child, helping poverty-impacted children is just something that’s close to my heart. I’ve so far raised £9,940, and I’d really love to reach £10k. I first had the idea for running the length of the Danube about 10 years ago. I was sat in a cafe in Vienna overlooking the Danube with a friend from Belgrade and a friend from Vienna. The friend from Vienna said if I were to put a message in a bottle you cold fish it out in Belgrade six days later. It was just a flippant remark, but the idea of this river connecting so many people, so many cities and so many cultures across Europe really stuck with me.

I’d already run marathons and ultras and was looking for something that was a once-in-a-lifetime challenge, and I kept coming back to the Danube. It’s 1,770 miles long, so divided by the distance of a marathon is 67 days.

I thought that’s actually the right side of crazy, it’s a possible impossible. It felt right in terms of size, and the time it’d take, plus from a practical point of view there’s a lot of infrastructure along the Danube so there’d be shops, cafes and campsites to support the run. When I couldn’t find any record of anyone having done it before, that cemented it for me – how often do you get to do something like that?

THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS

I set off at the end of June 2022 and had taken the decision to run in the heat of summer because my plan was to camp overnight. I’d got my kit bag down to about 10-12kg to be self sufficient, and I’d decided I’d rather suffer the heat of the day to be warmer at night than shiver overnight. I had one change of clothes and the longest I went without washing my kit was 10 days – the smell of it made me feel sick!

But I ended up not camping at all as it was far more difficult than I imagined. For large stretches of the first bit in Romania and Bulgaria I didn’t feel safe as there were a lot of wild stray dogs around. After spending six hours or so running on high alert each day, I felt I needed a place of sanctuary so I ended up staying in cheap guest houses and AirBnBs along the route.

Germany

The record run by numbers

Austria Slovakia

Hungary

Running for better

To donate to Kieran’s Run the Blue challenge, visit donate.giveasyoulive.com/ fundraising/runtheblue Croatia

Serbia Ukraine

Romania Moldova

Bulgaria

Final distance covered 1,830 miles

(2,945km)

No of days 67

Countries visited 8

(Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, Germany) Total hours run 410

I had my sister helping me from the UK to find places to stay and word spread through social media, so I had people along the way offering me a bed for the night in their homes.

I had fewer low points than I thought I’d have, but the lowest was in Romania. I was running through the outskirts of a town early one morning when I was attacked by three guard dogs. They came at me with teeth gnashing, and I was lucky that a car got between me and them otherwise I’d almost certainly have been bitten. Navigating all the stray dogs was already becoming emotionally tense and draining, and the morning after that I found it hard to leave the hotel room as I felt physically scared. I phoned my wife and said I don’t think I want to carry on.

However, I knew at mile 20 on that day a man called Dimitar was going to be waiting for me and had planned to crew me with his car for four days. Dimitar had come into my life a week or so earlier. Having been following me on social media, he’d driven an hour and a half from his home to meet me en route to cheer me on, and we’d made a plan for mile 20. Without his random act of kindness I’m not sure what would have happened – that morning I just kept telling myself I have to make it mile 20 and I’ll be OK.

It was the people along the way that made the challenge so enjoyable. There were so many acts of kindness from people in all the countries I ran through – the friendliness, the hospitality, feeding me, giving me water – and every time one happened it helped me run stronger and with more purpose.

It also felt pretty magic feeling – like I had the world to myself at times. I was setting off early so would see the sunrise and there’d be no one else around. That sense of adventure was wonderful. My family came out to see me a couple of times, and my wife, sister, mum, nephew and seven-year-old son followed me for the last two weeks. My son hadn’t shown much interest in running it, but after following along in the van for a bit he asked if he could run a section or two with me.

To have gone from those dark times where I’d been on my own and thinking about my family to all of a sudden having my son running alongside me and smiling it’s something I’ll aways remember. It felt strange once I’d finished to not have to run anymore. I loved it but it feels like a oncein-a-lifetime thing. Instead, next summer, we’re planning to cycle round Lake Garda as a family – it’s only a hundred miles or so.

I had one change of clothes and the longest I went without washing my kit was 10 days – the smell of it made me feel sick!

Longest distance covered in a single day 44.5 miles

Shortest distance covered in a single day 11.6 miles

Highest temperature 41ºc

in Serbia

Rest days 1

Steps 3.6 million

Pairs of shoes worn 3

Raised for charity £10,000

to help povertyimpacted children worldwide