2020 New Colombo Plan (NCP) scholar Shannon Schulz is a champion for finding sustainable ways to move from fossil fuel reliance to a clean energy future.
Fresh from a three-month internship with UNESCO in Samoa, the University of Melbourne graduate is now working in environment and business management, where she hopes to contribute to the global shift to a low carbon economy.
“We understand that for the survival of the planet we have to replace our sources of energy – however the challenge of providing sustainable energy for business, industry and society in ways that are ethical and commercially viable is the same,” she says.
“It is the transition we make that is exciting – how we move from a reliance on old energy sources and technologies to new ones and at the same time ensure societies survive and thrive.”
Shannon was born in Canada but spent her formative years in Western Australia where her parents moved for work in the oil and gas industry.
Surrounded, she says, by awe inspiring natural beauty but also in one of the most resource mining intensive places on the planet – it was the perfect arena to see how the push and pull between the environment and big business plays out.
And it is in that highly challenging space that Shannon is building her career.
Employed as a digital advisory consultant by Environmental Resources Management (ERM), the world's largest multinational consultancy dedicated to sustainability, she helps big companies to track emissions, and to plan digital strategies that measure their environmental performance and social capital.
During her NCP program, Shannon's experience started online, thanks to the global pandemic. She completed a study on the perceptions of climate change in people from the Cook Islands living in country and here in Australia as part of her honours research.
“Western media tends to catastrophise the impact of climate change on Pacific Island nations, but my research found that people living in the Islands felt they had some agency in managing their futures,” she says.
“The deficit frameworks used to construct the Pacific as inherently vulnerable, tend to portray island communities as static, doomed to fall victim to rising sea levels.
“But I found a different story. With support from the University of the South Pacific I enlisted 40 participants from various locations – the capital, the outer islands, and the diaspora – and assessed their perceptions of climate change, adaptation, and future livelihoods.
“The results showed that while climate change and its effects were well-recognised by all participants, location played a key role in how the threat was perceived. Outer islanders were the most proactive and confident in their ability and capacity to adapt.
“Attachment to the Islands, local environmental and cultural knowledge play a big part in how climate change is perceived and how the challenges might be met.”
Shannon believes through genuine and respectful engagement with island communities, positive partnerships can be forged to support them to thrive.
More recently, the Environmental Science graduate has been using her science and data analysis skills to their best advantage in Samoa as part of the UNESCO program ‘Building Forward Better by Safeguarding Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services'.
Shannon's time in her host location was spent undertaking freshwater quality sampling expeditions and venturing into remote jungles to collect and analyse plants species used in traditional medicines to establish their efficacy in the treatment of diabetes – an illness on the rise in the Pacific.
In conjunction with project partners the Science Research Organisation of Samoa, and to bolster the impact of that work, Shannon also organised and led a comprehensive data analysis workshop to equip participants with effective techniques for data cleansing, management, analysis, and the dissemination of findings related to freshwater quality research publications.
“From the bio-medical plant sampling work we completed on 200 species we have found 27 with bioactive properties, and those are being purified and preserved in the Vailma botanical gardens for future generations,” she says.
“Both projects are great examples of how important local knowledge, culture and tradition are in the resilience of Samoan society and how positive partnerships can amplify and strengthen important local research.”
Working in an atmosphere where science and culture are valued is what Shannon says she finds most rewarding.
“In the broadest sense I want to help organisations and communities adapt to net zero and my experiences through the NCP have reinforced the importance of respectful partnerships in achieving that goal.”
Shannon will be in Canberra this month for the next NCP Momentum event, being delivered in partnership with Cross Sector Development Partnerships Initiative (XSPI) and Accenture.
The event will see a panel of distinguished experts and NCP alumni explore how best to facilitate cross sector dialogue toward co-creating and aligning a common agenda for action and advocacy.
The panel discussion with be led by Stephen Howes, Director Development Policy Centre at Australian National University.
Shannon is one of several NCP alumni who will help facilitate working groups looking at how cross-sector partnerships can strengthen in-country capacity to tackle issues such as conservation, pollution minimisation, infrastructure development, climate change and sustainability in the Pacific region.
