Inspiring Individuals – Emily Penn – Ocean Advocate

As we kick off a brand new year (and the start of the UN Decade of the Ocean), for my latest Inspiring Individuals interview, am delighted to feature the incredible Emily Penn who embodies the concept of following passion and purpose and who was recently commended in the New Year’s Honours List with a British Empire Medal.

I first discovered Emily’s work when I went to the London Ocean Drinks networking event, soon after returning from my Cayman (mis) adventure. The event was for likeminded people to meet and collaborate and was just what I needed to pick me up from my recent career disappointment. I was fascinated to learn about the work of eXXpedition a not-for-profit organisation which Emily co-founded and which runs pioneering all-female sailing research expeditions to investigate the causes of and solutions to ocean plastic pollution.

Founded in 2014, eXXpedition has run expeditions all over the world. The issue of microplastics within our ocean environments has become an increasingly major issue, and eXXpedition’s focus now is to advance a better understanding of the plastics issue as a whole and to work with industry to pinpoint solutions and policy at a global level by addressing knowledge-gaps and delivering evidence to inform effective solutions. In October 2019, they launched eXXpedition Round the World – with 300 multidisciplinary women sailing across 30 voyages over a two-year period.

Unfortunately as a result of the global pandemic, the voyage had to pause last year, but allowed Emily and her team to launch a tech platform called SHiFT which educates and empowers us to make the right choices.

I was intrigued to learn more about how Emily developed her passion for the oceans and creating an enterprise to try to change that.

WD : Thank you Emily for taking time to speak to WD and congratulations on the launch of shift.how and your British Empire Medal. Can you explain how your love for the oceans and environmental work first started. Did you have a day job or did you fall straight into this out of university?

EP: My journey to tackle plastic pollution began over 10 years ago, when I hitch-hiked around the world on a biofueled boat to get to a new job in Australia. It was a job I didn’t end up taking. Instead, shocked by finding plastic in some of the most remote places on our planet, I chose to live on a group of Pacific islands for six months to organise a community clean-up. I then travelled to California to learn more from some of the experts in the field of ocean plastic. Since then, my career has been dedicated to raising the profile of ocean plastic pollution, and has taken me all over the world facilitating science at sea, outreach and the implementation of solutions on land. In 2014, I co-founded eXXpedition – organising all-women sailing voyages with a focus on plastic and toxic pollution in the ocean. And last year, I launched the SHiFT platform to help people navigate hundreds of impactful solutions to ocean plastic pollution, finding the ones that are best for them.

WD: And can you tell us a little more about shift.how. When I first heard you speak I Ioved your idea of everyone having a ‘superpower’ – is this how we can claim it – by making a difference where we can?

EP: The idea behind the SHiFT Platform is to use innovative technology to help users find their role and use their superpower to tackle ocean plastic pollution. By navigating hundreds of impactful solutions from sea to source, users can find the ones that are best for them to action.

The more time I spend at sea, the more I realise the solutions to plastic pollution start on land. There’s no silver bullet to solve the problem but there are hundreds of ways to tackle it. A big challenge for many people is knowing where to start. That’s why I first developed the SHiFT methodology- a journey of discovery to help people understand the crux of a problem and weigh up where they have the biggest opportunity to make an impact.  For years I’ve been using this methodology in my workshops and sailing expeditions and it’s really effective. Working with individuals, businesses and governments around the world, it’s helped them pinpoint where to take action and inspire others to follow.

But for lasting impact we need scale – to be able to help the tens of thousands of people and businesses that reach out saying “I care, I get it, I want to do something!”. Thanks to our partners at SAP, we’ve brought the SHiFT method to digital life as the SHiFT Platform. Now we’ve got a way to help them… and many more, accelerating the journey towards a healthy ocean.

WD: We are witnessing a global movement where people want to inject more purpose into their lives, and the pressing issue of climate change is very much the topic on most people’s minds. What is your advice for people who have jobs in other areas, but still wish to get involved in helping the environment?

EP: It is billions of microactions that got us into this situation with ocean plastic, and it’s billions of microactions that will solve the problem. Just get started by taking small steps – it will all add up!

SHiFT.how lists hundreds of ways you can make personal changes to have an impact so I’d encourage people to explore the platform to find the actions that are best for them.

As well as our personal actions, we need to be working as far upstream as we possibly can. The behaviour and actions of you and I as individuals are very important, but we also need to also be talking about the role of industry. How can we redesign our products? How can we redesign our systems in society? And, how can we legislate those both to incentivise industry to do it in the first place, and also so that we can sustain positive changes long-term?

To create change, we need to look at our own skill sets and work out how we can apply them to tackling our global problems, like ocean plastic. Businesses and governments are made of individuals after all!

WD: There is also an increasing amount of ‘Sustainability overwhelm’ and frustration: I guess self-care must come into your routine, how do you combat the fatigue and frustrations.

EP: Absolutely – we’ve got to keep our minds fresh and invigorated to keep at it every day! For me I need to keep reminding myself why I care so much about the natural world. And so immersing myself in nature is key – I continue to be inspired by watching the way light bounces off the water, surrounded by a mesmerising pink sky, the feel of salty spray on my skin. I love to get my sketchbook out to capture these moments as it immerses me further.

WD: The core messaging for my series of Inspiring Individual posts is to explore the idea of Follow your Bliss as coined by Joseph Campbell.  Does this concept resonate with how you have led your life and the work you do?

EP: My work has always been driven by following my heart, along with my passion for the ocean. I wake up each day ready to work on whatever feels the most important thing to do that day. I’m much better at committing my time now, but in the early days of my career I kept myself very free from commitments so I could follow my bliss every hour of the day and every day of the week!

WD:  So, what is next for eXXpedition and for you in 2021?

EP: Like everyone around the world we’re working hard to adapt to these changing times! We’ve had to cancel our at-sea missions and we’re putting our energy into creating change differently.

Working with our partners we’ve got some exciting digital tools and initiative launches on the horizon, to build on our work with www.SHiFT.how.

There is still a huge amount that can be done remotely and without physical meetups and we’re seeing a lot of energy and enthusiasm from our community who are collaborating on projects from all corners of the world. While many convenience driven actions that have contributed to ocean plastics (like disposable coffee cups and water bottles) are likely to be reduced during these times of social isolation, there’s a huge amount of single use plastic used in the medical sector so only time will tell what impact Covid will ultimately have on the state of our oceans.

WD: Thank you so much Emily for speaking to me and for inspiring us to make a difference and to re-claim our own super-powers in order to do so!

Happy new year all! Here’s to a wonderful 2021 and new decade of inspiring ocean action!

Love Sangeeta x