my story (so far)
So it was a Thursday night in Paddington and my soon to be parents locked eyes across the pub… just kidding.
Here’s a brief overview of my 24 years on this planet (written up to Dec 2024)
Growing up in Cronulla, south of Sydney my childhood was filled with days at the beach, surfing, doing nippers and eventually playing water polo.
Read my bio here
Primary School
I always had a natural inclination towards the ocean and environment, joining my primary school environmental group in Year 3 but was much more interested in playing footy and soccer during lunch time in later primary school years so gave that up!
I loved all sports and eventually found the sport that I still play till this day - water polo.
High School - Introduction to Climate Change & Taking Action
Never losing my love for the natural environment it wasn’t until a science class in Year 10 that watching Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth was my first real introduction to the serious nature of climate change.
Looking for a way to take action realised a major opportunity that schools can play through reducing emissions by installing solar panels.
I wrote a proposal about why the school should get solar panels & sent it to the captains at the time as well as the Assistant Principal. Didn’t get a response back.
After two more years of trying to get solar - including pulling a prank for my school captain speech with Scott Tweedie from the popular ABC show Prank Patrol (which ended up with me being withdrawn from being school captain), Year 12 started and the days left to get solar installed were ticking away.
I finally met with the Principal and after laying the case for solar, he said it was too hard to get these installed, too expensive and I should just tell my classmates to turn the lights off more.
Still feeling determined that there had to be a better way, I reached out to the Department of Education (DoE) a body that heads up public schools in NSW and after a few back & forth emails during the school holidays of 2017/18 we had a proposal on our hands.
The first day back my Principal brought me into his office (Feb 2018) and I thought.. Oh no!
But he was excited, costs had come down and the process was easier than ever all we had to do was raise funds & the NSW State Government would match it with 50% funding.
So he arranged for me to pitch to the P&C for funding. I made the economic, social and environmental case for solar and a few months later we had a 93kw, roughly $100,000 solar panel system and I became the first student in the country to do so.
Some times you have to think outside of the box.
After the news got around what I achieved at Caringbah High and had people all over NSW reaching out, I developed a template with how to go about the process to get solar - I helped schools from as far regional as Tamworth as well as the Inner West and had my story shared in the ABC, RenewEconomy & our local paper to name a few. The Inner West Council, inspired by the action at Caringbah High adopted a Solar My School program that has seen over 20 schools have solar installed.
It was a year ticking a lot of goals, making the Australian Youth Water Polo team competing in Hungary at the Youth World Champs & getting a good enough ATAR to get into my dream course of B. Commerce B. Advance Studies at the University of Sydney.
University - Tackling Plastic at the Source.
Finishing high school and still playing water polo at a high level, my water polo team the Cronulla Sharks, trained every week in the local bay, Gunnamatta Bay. One training session after it had rained, we trained just like we always did but after about 20 minutes of trying to swim and pass the ball, the coach cancelled the session because it was impossible to train with the amount of plastic pollution in the water.
This made me sick that our bay was this polluted.
I thought the best way to fix this locally and take action was to turn the tap off plastics and stop it at the source so I co-founded Plastic Free Cronulla with the local Chamber of Commerce helping drive a business movement based on gamification and positivity through our Plastic Free Champion program to encourage businesses to switch to plastic-free alternatives - business by business, school by school we built up a movement that changed the narrative of plastic in the Sutherland Shire.
We worked with businesses of all sizes, the largest business we worked with was the Cronulla RSL who we helped them switch from 120,000 plastic straws per year to paper and encourage them to install infrastructure to reduce their landfill such as a glass crusher & plastic bailers.
On top of this we worked collaboratively with all levels of government, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the NSW Government and the local council. We wrote letters on behalf of 300+ businesses and lobbied the NSW cabinet to push legislation banning the single-use plastic items we were targeting. Alongside a lot of other campaigns and organisation we were collectively successful in seeing the largest state in Australia bring about a historic ban of single-use plastics in 2022.
Off the back of this, I was selected onto the World Ocean Day Youth Advisory council and this is where the story I believe starts..
Think Global | Act Local
Let’s Solve these Crises
Joining the World Ocean Day Youth Advisory Council and subsequently being invited as a delegate to United Nations COP27 (2022) in Egypt opened my eyes that the local problems I was facing with plastic, angst of climate change are faced by humans all across the world.
I came back from Sharm El Sheik with a burning fire in my belly. As an Australian, one from Cronulla, I felt guilt.
I felt like I owed it to all the young activists, friends to do everything I can about this crisis. Yes we still face the impacts of climate change in Australia and will continue to, when you speak with someone your own age from the Marshall Islands and they tell you they won’t be able to live in their home in the next 5 years. It made me sick.
If you want to change the world.. start by changing your world
Cooper Chapman, one of my friends said this to me over coffee and it all made sense, in our own lives we have so many touch points, so many opportunities for positive impact that we can all do something.
Over 2023, whilst balancing full-time work (General Manager of an international swimwear company, Delfina) I tried to find as many opportunities as possible in my own world to make a difference:
Switching materials, packaging and processes at my work
Filmed a documentary series exploring solutions to the climate & plastic crises
Co-founded the Youth Ocean Carnival, taking ocean leaders to schools across NSW to inspire ocean action
Part of Water Polo Australia Climate Advisory Panel, delivering a landmark sporting Climate Strategy
Helped organise the Sutherland Shire’s first Youth Climate Forum
Keynotes and speaking - spoke to 3000+ people over 2023
Joined Australian Museum Youth Climate Advisory Panel, Youthtopia Circle of Youth & became an ambassador for Take 3 For the Sea.
Then was invited back to UN COP28 in Dubai and had the biggest revelation..
Going all in.
Being back at COP felt like déjà vu.
Things weren’t getting better. Instead they were heading the other direction.
This realisation drove me to work as hard as I could outside of my full-time job, hustling with my documentary, speaking at events but I realised that no matter how much I did outside of my 45+hr work weeks for the ocean.. there still could’ve been more I could give.
I’m very close with my grandparents & think a lot of what advice I would tell them 40-50 years ago (buying shares in Apple is near the top of my list!) and I think a lot about what questions my own grandkids will ask me.
Will they say, ‘oh it’s great you knew all the science and could’ve done something, but you spent the crucial years making money selling swimwear’. I don’t want to have any regrets
So… after nearly 7 years growing from an intern to General Manager in the company of my dreams.. I quit my job and went all in.
I didn’t have anything really ready to go, I had started building a name for myself in the ocean space, had my documentary Rising Up successfully released and was ready for the first Youth Ocean Carnival event for World Ocean Day (ended up with 700+ students in Luna Park for one of the coolest events I’ve ever been involved in. See pic).
After getting a lot of advice from different people as to what the world needs right now I sat down, if I had a magic wand, want would I do?
With a few months of savings I had a few months to give it a crack.
From the amazing young people I’ve met in my journey so far from filming the documentary or going to COP I know the power my generation has to turn the tide on the biggest problems we face today. In the 2028 Australian Federal Election we will be (Gen Z) 1/4 of the vote.
We are an absolute force of a generation that is currently not activated.
Why is that?
You could distill it down to the statistic that 67% of young Australians mental health is suffering from eco-anxiety, fears of the environment, fears that I know all too well. And this resulting in nihilism and a lack of empowerment means that my generation often switch off to the amazing work done by so many youth organisations in the climate space.
So I have set off on a mission to tackle eco-anxiety, with my good friend Cooper Chapman (founder of Good Human Factory & has spoken with 50,000+ students) and the team at Surfers for Climate we created Blue Minds and after a successful pilot delivering free school workshops to 3,500+ youth in QLD we are now scaling the initiative across the country.
At the same time, looking at the trends of the environment in my local area of the Sutherland Shire I decided to run as an independent in the 2024 Local Council elections… and got in! The youngest Councillor in the Sutherland Shire. It’s been a real privilege being able to be at the decision making table overseeing such a large organisation (over $300M budget) & making positive change for my community.
Rising Up my documentary has been extremely well received as its toured the country and is about to go live on streaming platforms for schools and the broader public (& I’ve started work on a follow up film!)
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Could not have predicted at all how 2024 would pan out & am so grateful for the opportunities and support to help me on my mission to empower young Australians to look after our ocean.
Overall in 2024 I delivered keynotes, presented workshops or panel discussions with over 13,000 people including doing my first TEDx which was another highlight.
The thing that gives me so much energy is hearing one week, one month or one year later from someone I’ve spoken with, the changes they’ve made in their own lives - starting environment clubs, changing their plastic habits, changing professions or backing their own idea. Everyone taking one step differently.
That’s my magic wand ask.. to get everyone to take one step.
Excited for 2025 !
(written Dec 2024)
My first TEDx - ‘How young people can rewrite the future’
Young people face an unprecedented challenge—rewriting the future in the face of a rapidly changing planet.
In this inspiring talk, Kal Glanznig shares how hope lies in action, drawing from his journey leading his high school to install solar, tackling plastic pollution, eco-anxiety, and driving real policy change. He reveals how young people can break barriers, collaborate across generations, and create ripples of change in their communities.