Shellan Saling

Shellan Saling is Interim Chair of the Youth Plastics Action Network (YPAN), a youth constituency for the ongoing UN Global Plastics Treaty negotiations (the INC process). Developed with the support of the Children and Youth Major Group to UNEP, YPAN was built to give young people a structured voice in a process that had none. Under her leadership the network has grown youth delegation participation by 400 percent, now coordinates young people across 170+ countries, and has moved youth from observers to contributors: delivering formal interventions on the negotiating floor, aligning positions with coalition partners, and contributing treaty language on extended producer responsibility, sustainable materials and other provisions. Youth are now an established voice in the room, with proposals carried into the negotiating text by member states.

YPAN’s Multilateral Environmental Negotiations Bootcamp, which Shellan co-founded and runs with IUCN’s World Commission on Environmental Law, builds negotiating capacity for young people, member state delegations, businesses and other stakeholders, and has trained more than 10,000 participants from 130+ countries in just over a year.

Alongside this, Shellan is a sustainability and climate professional who has worked and consulted across North America, Europe and Asia. She advises companies on carbon measurement and climate transition and builds AI-powered tools for sustainability work, including one that cut regulatory analysis from 40 hours to under 30 seconds. Her work connects international policy to implementation inside companies. She holds an MA in Development Studies from Erasmus University Rotterdam and a BA in International Relations from UC Davis. Fittingly, she took her first steps in Yosemite National Park, an early sign of the path her life and work would follow.