Anna Pannell

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, URPS

As the majority of our passions and interests arise, Anna’s desire to live a more sustainable life started with her mother. Anna’s mother instilled in her a love for the natural world and ensured that Anna was always mindful of her impact on the planet; from encouraging recycling to talking to Anna about her work in environmental management.

 Now, Anna loves to encourage others to make change; she notes that it is important to realise that it is not necessary everyone to do something 100%, but rather it is more effective if everyone were to do a little bit, all of the time.

It is the conversations about using a reusable cup to grab your morning coffee, reusable bags to carry your shopping and refusing the single use plastics at your local takeaway which enable those around us to start making these small changes. However, more effective than any other motivator for Anna, is the idea that her change can benefit her children’s future.

Anna has been an environmental scientist for 20 years, working in natural resource management and climate change. She finds her career extremely rewarding and loves that it offers a multi-disciplinary approach to resource management that considers the wide range of interacting areas and highlights the need to manage these holistically.

 In her day-to-day life, many of Anna’s projects plan for the future meaning she must ensure they consider how climate change will impact them and how they can minimise their contribution to climate change. She particularly enjoys working on projects that consider how communities can prepare and respond to climate impacts, and how to provide information to support individuals to help themselves..

 When she’s not in the office, Anna loves to run, garden and travel. Most importantly she loves doing all of this with her children. In her own time she is conscious about minimising her emissions by buying local produce and riding her bike whenever possible. Anna has also taken opportunities to speak to classes at her children’s school about sustainability. When visiting schools Anna has been happily surprised by how engaged and knowledgeable the children have been on the topic of sustainability and believes that this demonstrates the shift in narrative that is occurring and highlights the importance of living an eco-conscious life; now more than ever.