What's your job about?
Alluvium Consulting supports governments and businesses to address complex challenges across a range of environmental, social, and economic domains. While the company’s roots lie in waterways management, the Alluvium Group as a whole is now comprised of five smaller companies that each have a particular focus. These span areas such as water resource sharing, cities and communities, natural resource management and ecology, climate change adaptation, and integrating catchment to coast science, engineering, and economics.
While its integrated structure is a little to get your head around, it means that Alluvium is welcome to take on anyone with a keen environmental and sustainability focus at their core, whether your discipline lies in environmental science and engineering, if you’re more from the ecology field, or even from social sciences or economics, there can be a place for you within the teams.
For me, I work on a team that develops management and adaptation plans for communities that live on Australia’s coasts. We consider how their coastal environment will change in the future, especially with the impacts of climate change. We then consider what it is that the people in these communities value most about where they live and how we can best protect their coastal values, uses, and infrastructure in the future.
My work currently involves a mixture of local policy and document analysis, as well as interpreting technical reports of how coastal processes like erosion affect coastlines. I also am learning to use GIS systems to explore current and future impacts on these environments under different climate change scenarios.
What's your background?
I grew up in semi-rural Victoria, in a quiet, bushy town where I spent a lot of time outside 🌳🌞
I was always drawn to science, particularly biology, and chemistry. So I first went to university to become a veterinarian and completed the initial part of the study pathway. However, I decided being a vet wasn’t for me, so I decided to pursue my love for chemistry and working with people and did a Bachelor of Pharmacy. I spent a few years working as a pharmacist in public hospitals in Melbourne, where I enjoyed the mixture of pharmacology, patient care, and being able to work with a mixture of other health professionals.
After a few years, I realized that my heart was really in the environmental sphere, and so decided to go back to study, again! I was open to working in a range of fields, from biodiversity conservation to waste management…anything that would be contributing to the health of our planet. I ended up being drawn to climate change policy, which is what I have majored in.
I wanted to start gaining experience in my new field before graduating, and an email from Alluvium passing through my university inbox caught my attention. I read that they were looking for post-grad students, or students nearing the end of their degree, to join the team in a range of capacities. I sent them an EOI and my CV, came in for an interview, and I’ve now been working part-time with Alluvium since June 2023 while I complete my Masters.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Definitely! The people on my coastal team come from a range of backgrounds, from environmental engineering, and geography, and my mixed background.
The key skills that are needed in my role are the ability to understand basic technical aspects of scientific information, such as how waves may impact the movement of sand. You also need to be able to apply this information to how these coastal environments are managed by organizations such as local governments or other land managers (for example, Parks Vic or DEECA). Understanding community values is also important, so skills in community engagement are also useful in my role.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
Broadly, I enjoy being in a workplace full of other people who care about the environment as much as I do.
In my team, I like that I get to work with a mixture of social science aspects of environmental policy, combined with more technical aspects, such as understanding how water and wind movements shape our coastlines. I also really enjoy the community engagement elements, such as being out in a community, and understanding local priorities and perspectives, while being able to do site visits at some of the beautiful places my work is focussed on.
What are the limitations of your job?
Working within a consultancy framework was an adjustment for me, which included learning how to break down my work day into ‘billable hours’, as well as being mindful of the budget and time constraints that our projects have.
As a new team member, I have the full support of my more experienced team members behind me. However, I do see that those working with higher levels of responsibility experience greater fluctuations in their work demands. For example, they may go through brief but intense periods of working towards a hard deadline, which can be stressful.
3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...
Sit down and seriously consider what kind of work would make you engaged, interested, and satisfied if you had to do it every day.
Consider the environment you like to work in – do you want to prioritize being able to work from home? Do you value being in a communal workspace? Do you simply need periods of being outdoors?
Think about the kinds of people you want to be surrounded by. Do they have the same core values as you? Deep down, do they care about the big-picture stuff in a similar or complementary way to you? This is so important!