Carlos Shanka is a young sustainability enthusiast from the Canary Islands, Spain. At a young age, he started engaging in several sustainability schemes and moved to study biology at the University of Bristol. He led as the President of the Bristol University Sustainability Team as well as the Chair of the Student's Union Sustainability Network. He has been granted the Sustainability Champion Green Gown Award, the most prestigious award in sustainability in higher education in the UK and Ireland, for his efforts in education for sustainable development, fostering careers in sustainability, energetic decarbonisation, and impact investing at the institutional level.

His growing climate-crisis frustration prompted him to attend high-level conferences, including COP26, SB56, and COP27, as well as representing Spain at COY16 and COY17. Having recently interned on Research and Outreach at the UNDP and travelled through different cultures around the world, he is working on the sustainability youth hub that he founded in the Canary Islands to overcome local challenges: Global Shapers Las Palmas.