Q&A with Shona Calzada Ganguly, BWG’s new Principal

Please join Better World Group in welcoming our newest Principal, Shona Calzada Ganguly. Learn how Shona’s experience in policy, campaigns, and conservation, growing up in California, having the opportunity to travel around the world, learning five languages, and being from an Indian Bengali family have shaped who she is and how she approaches cultivating relationships, collaboration, and partnership building. 

Q: Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where did you grow up?

A: I was born and raised in California. I was born in Mission Viejo in Orange County and lived in Anaheim Hills until I was 10 and then in Tustin Hills until I was 13. My mom, two brothers, and I moved to the Bay Area, where I lived until I graduated from Los Altos High School. I studied Development Studies and South Asian Studies at UC Berkeley. After undergrad, I was fortunate to volunteer and travel internationally before pursuing a master's in Cultural Studies at Claremont Graduate University and an MBA at the Peter Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management.

When I completed my graduate programs, my dream was to alleviate poverty through educational infrastructure building as I had witnessed extreme conditions in Kolkata, India, where my family is from. Through happenstance, I ended up in Los Angeles and working at The Nature Conservancy (TNC) because the mission of conserving the lands and waters on which all life depends resonated with me.  

I wanted to serve communities and realized there is an intersection between climate and poverty, especially when it comes to access to nature and resources. I continue to be dedicated to conserving the lands and water on which all life depends, particularly emphasizing that when nature thrives, all life (human and natural communities) can thrive, not just survive.  

Q: You spent much of your career to date at The Nature Conservancy. Tell us more about your career path there.

A: I worked at The Nature Conservancy for nearly 12 years. I have been in a number of roles in my time at TNC, from operations to external affairs. I had the opportunity to work on a lot of different issues, from parks to stormwater, to local and state ballot and funding measures, including Proposition 1 (2014), Proposition 68 (2018), LA County’s Measure A for Parks and Open Space (2016), LA County’s Measure W for Stormwater (2018), and SOAR in Ventura County (2016), among others. My role evolved over time. I started out doing outreach to elected officials on TNC’s conservation priorities mostly at the state and federal level, and then I started branching out into more local policy at the city and county levels to support our programs. Most of my work has been in Southern California supporting TNC’s climate program. I also built and engaged in multiple coalitions and partnerships with environmental justice organizations, community-based organizations. conservation organizations, labor, and tribal groups as well. It was always a priority for me to reach out to folks to develop connections directly. It was never transactional for me. It was really more about asking how we work together to reach our shared goals and build trust over time. And even if some of those goals were not directly what TNC was working on at the time, it was always really important that we supported each other in our intersectional work. I have approached my work in an intersectional and relational way. 

With the combination of my studies and life experience, I felt like I could not be a human on this planet without doing something to make change because the state of affairs is so inequitable and just frankly wrong. There are these gross inequities. After I graduated from Berkeley, it was 2008 and the height of the recession. I was lucky enough to be able to volunteer, travel, and apply to graduate schools. I ended up at Claremont pursuing two very different programs that could be considered diametrically opposed. However, what's great about Peter Drucker’s approach to business is totally different from any other MBA because of the emphasis on the triple bottom line (social, environmental, and economic) and what I consider a humanistic ethic or approach.

Q: What motivated you to pursue a career in the environmental sector?

A: In some ways, I ended up in the environmental space by luck. I stayed because of a true love of nature and our connection to our natural systems. Stories about nature are central to many cultures and myths, including Hindu, Greek, Roman, Norse, and other mythologies around the world. We are all stewards of nature, and we are all part of nature.

Q: What current environmental and climate issues are you passionate about?

A: Climate affects our planet at multiple levels. It ranges from local contamination, which is site specific, to global disaster risk. It affects frontline communities the hardest. There are people who think they will be able to avoid climate impacts (or that they are not exacerbated by humans or even real), but that viewpoint ignores the interconnection of our planet and societies. 

Climate change affects the quality, quantity, and availability of our water, food, air, and so much more. My son is going to be three years old in April, and it is essential to change the course and integrate sustainability into everything we do for him and the future of their generation and their descendants. We have a responsibility as their ancestors to protect our environment and the communities that depend on and are inextricably linked to our earth.

I see myself engaging in an intersectional way. We have to transition to nature-based solutions because they provide multiple benefits for communities. We need to convert as much impermeable surface to permeable surface, create wildlife buffers, stop building in high risk and critical habitat areas. We need to invest in smart infill and develop in areas that are already degraded and do not have clear climate risks (all informed by science).

It’s not about working on one issue - it’s about having a holistic approach. We need to think about all of these areas collaboratively.

Q: What opportunities are you most excited about in your new role at Better World Group? 

A: As a firm, there’s a nimble aspect of BWG. We can bring together diverse partners to take on issues in a way that is not single-minded. Many problems we are working to unpack and hopefully solve are not individual issues, but interconnected. We need to work on issues together, contextualize them, and connect them to the greater landscape.

What excited me most about BWG is that the firm and team are equity-driven. The firm focuses on communities, and it functions as a social impact firm. Part of the firm’s vision is to come up with transformative solutions for visionary clients. This is so aligned with the way I have aimed to work.

I am excited by the diversity of the projects on which BWG works. I am hoping to engage more conservation organizations in these processes and efforts.

I want to start from a place of listening and learning. Most of all, BWG is a firm with a conscience. BWG’s team is so good at connecting local policy to global issues.

Q: Now that you’re at Better World Group, we want to know what emerging and current climate issues you’re keeping a pulse on. What’s at the forefront for you?

A: Communities need access to nature for our health, safety, and well-being, and nature is also an excellent solution to a variety of problems. TNC and other conservation partners have been pushing for the integration and prioritization of nature-based climate solutions in planning, infrastructure investments, and climate mitigation and adaptation. I believe we need native vegetation and healthy soil in as many places as we can put them.

We have a crisis where community members are unhoused. The crisis derives from a combination of inadequate supply near job centers, inequitable access, services, lack of protections and support in the current economic system, and an intricate web of social, economic, and political challenges. Sprawl will not reverse this crisis. Instead, we must promote redevelopment in towns and cities, smart infill while reducing greenfield development, and stronger social fabric and community connection to reduce alienation. The intersection between conservation and housing is a critical climate issue.  

Q: What’s one question you wish people would ask you more when they are getting to know you?

A: I like being asked and asking about someone’s favorite park, garden, or open space.

I love going to Descanso Gardens with my son who will turn three next month. We love exploring parks all over LA County, especially ones with playgrounds. We recently explored Two Strike Park in La Crescenta-Montrose, and it was lovely.