Vienna Unlocked: Exploring Sustainability and Accessibility Through Time

Vienna Unlocked: Exploring Sustainability and Accessibility Through Time

This tour has been jointly organised by Vienna Your Way and Planet Abled for the ViennaUP 2025.

Discover Vienna from a new perspective — one that highlights the city’s journey toward a more sustainable and inclusive future. This walking tour leads you along the famous Ringstrasse, past some of Vienna’s most iconic landmarks, including the Vienna State Opera, St. Stephen’s Cathedral, and Albertina Square, while uncovering hidden stories about climate adaptation, eco-conscious urban planning, social equity, and accessibility.

From green innovations and accessibility measures at the Museum of Applied Arts to the legacy of food waste solutions, from the challenges of financial exclusion to questions of equal access to education, each stop reveals how Vienna’s rich history intersects with pressing issues of today.

We’ll explore how climate change is reshaping urban environments at the New Market, how accessibility has evolved from medieval city walls to tactile guidance systems, and how resource management — including recycling and material reuse — has long been part of the city's DNA, even in the construction of St. Stephen’s Cathedral.

Join us for a thought-provoking journey through the heart of Vienna — perfect for anyone passionate about sustainability, social justice, and innovative urban design.

The tour is completely accessible and open to people with disabilities. Whether you are a wheelchair user, blind, deaf, hard of hearing, neurodivergent, or have any other visible or invisible disabilities, you can join the tour.

There will also be an Austrian Sign Language Interpreter accompanying us during the tour, and simple language documentation and picture references will be provided.

This tour is exclusively available for ViennaUP festival participants with a valid ViennaUP festival wristband. The organizers reserve the right to exclude individuals without a ViennaUP Festival wristband from the tour. (Check www.viennaup.com for more details)

See you there!

About the Organisers:

VIENNA YOUR WAY stands for special corporate events and offers experience-oriented consulting and training. Special city tours in Vienna in this context make business and strategy topics such as innovation, change, leadership, or sustainability visible and provide long-term inspiration and motivation. More details here https://www.viennayourway.com/

​Planet Abled is a globally recognized, award-winning travel brand enabling inclusive travel for people with disabilities and the elderly. Drawing from the founder’s 41 years of lived experience, it designs accessible travels, consults on destinations, and builds inclusive tourism ecosystems. Planet Abled provides training, consulting, and certification for tourism industry stakeholders to embed accessibility into their practices, frameworks and services. It addresses barriers like inaccessible infrastructure, digital exclusion, and lack of standardization. Aligned with the UN SDGs, its mission is to bridge the gap between perceived and actual accessibility, creating a global movement toward truly inclusive, sustainable tourism. More details here https://planetabled.com/

ViennaUP is one of Europe’s largest startup events, returning with a bang in 2025. Decentralised across the city and populated by the local and international innovation community, it is a catalyst for connection, where founders, investors, and creative minds gather to spark revolutionary ideas. Hosted by ViennaBusiness, ViennaUP greets attendees with a diverse array of events and provides an inspiring, accessible, authentic experience for visitors, new and old. Participants are invited to challenge boundaries, share breakthrough insights, and dive deep into the diverse Viennese startup ecosystem.

Route Details:

A TOUR THROUGH THE HISTORY OF SUSTAINABILITY IN VIENNA

Ring road / Karl Lueger Platz

• Greening: challenges past and present

• Circular economy, accessibility measures, and eco label at the Museum of Applied Arts

Model of the city, Stubentor

• Accessibility of the city in the past (city wall) and today (for persons with disabilities)

Ignaz Seipl Square / Jesuit Church

• Food waste - measures from, 300 years ago and today

Ombudsman's Office Singerstraße

• The challenge of inflation and the founding of the National Bank
• The “second bank” for people affected by financial and social exclusion
• Accessibility of bank services (e.g. websites) for people with disabilities

St. Stephen's Cathedral

• Early schools in the Middle Ages
• Access to education in former times, differences between boys and girls
• Accessibility of today’s educational system
• Model of the cathedral and recycling of building material in former times

Graben

• Roman sewers, pollution in the Middle Ages
• Adaptation of an avenue to human needs, including accessibility today?

New market

• Adaptation of a city to the challenges of climate change
• Importance of fresh water for cities
• Climate change and the health of people

Albertina Square

• Former Bürgerspital, health care over time
• Care for people with disabilities over time

State Opera House

• Precarious working conditions during the construction of the Ringstrasse
• Working conditions for people with disabilities today
• Underpass towards Karlsplatz: guidance markings for the blind

Karlsplatz

• Mobility in the past and today, air pollution from traffic
• Accessibility of subway stations from Otto Wagner to today
• Construction industry: new and sustainable materials

Also check out other Festivals in Wien, Workshops in Wien, Health & Wellness events in Wien.