Young voices, regional futures and the work of transition

Why Net:Zed matters — and why agency must sit at the centre of net zero education

Today marks an important moment for Net:Zed, for the Hunter, and for the young people who will live longest with the outcomes of Australia’s transition to a net zero economy.

The Net Zero Economy Authority has officially launched Transitioning Economies – Your Say, a place-based education initiative delivered by Net:Zed, an initiative of MCB Business Partners. The program will support Hunter students to explore what the energy transition means for their region, their communities, their future study pathways and the industries and jobs that may shape their lives.

That matters - not only because students need to “learn about net zero”. They do.

But the deeper opportunity is different.

This is about giving young people the tools, language and confidence to ask better questions about the future they are inheriting — and to contribute ideas of their own.

Transition is not just a technical problem

Too much of the net zero conversation is framed as if transition is primarily a technical exercise: generation, transmission, storage, infrastructure, investment, regulation, workforce pipelines. All of that matters.

But transition also happens in places.

It happens in towns, schools, homes, sporting clubs, small businesses, industrial estates and communities with long memories. It happens in regions where identity, work, family history, landscape and economic opportunity are deeply connected.

The Hunter is one of those places.

It is not a blank canvas for transition. It is a region with capability, pride, lived experience and deep community knowledge. It has helped power Australia for generations. Now it is being asked to imagine, negotiate and help build what comes next.

That cannot be done to communities. It has to be done with them. And that includes young people.

Young people are not just future workers......

There is a tendency in policy and industry conversations to talk about young people mainly as a future workforce. That is understandable. Skills, jobs and pathways matter enormously, particularly in regions undergoing structural economic change.

But young people are not simply future workers in someone else’s economy.

They are future citizens, decision-makers, carers, builders, creators, business owners, community leaders and voters. They will inherit the consequences of today’s decisions, but they are too often left at the edge of the conversation.

Programs like Transitioning Economies – Your Say help shift that.

Across two school terms, students will explore the energy transition, future study and career pathways, changes in local industries and businesses, and questions of community resilience and liveability. They will then develop their own ideas and responses, sharing them through a regional showcase involving schools, industry, government and community representatives.

That is not just education.

It is participation.

It is a way of saying: "your region’s future is not something being decided somewhere else, by people you will never meet. It is something you can understand, question, shape and contribute to".

Why place-based learning matters

At FASTlab, we have always been interested in the space between systems and lived experience.

A national transition strategy may talk about workforce development, industry diversification and clean energy opportunity. But a student in the Hunter may be asking much more immediate questions.

• What will happen to the industries my family knows?

• Will there be meaningful work here for me?

• Will I have to leave to find opportunity?

• Who is making these decisions?

• Do people like me get a say?

• What kind of community are we trying to build?

These are not soft questions. They are central questions.

A transition that does not engage with place, identity and agency risks becoming abstract. It may be technically correct, but socially thin. It may produce plans, but not trust. It may describe opportunity, but fail to connect with the people who need to believe in it.

Place-based learning creates a different starting point.

It begins with the region students know. It connects big systems change to local industries, local landscapes, local stories and local futures. It gives students a way to see themselves in the transition — not as passive recipients of change, but as people with a stake in what comes next.

The FASTlab role

I am proud to be involved in this work through both MCB Business Partners and FASTlab.

MCB Business Partners is the team behind Net:Zed and is delivering the program.

FASTlab brings a complementary role: helping connect education, engagement, storytelling, research and evidence of value.

For us, the question is not simply whether a program was delivered.

The deeper question is: what changed?

• Did students feel more confident talking about transition?

• Did they develop a stronger sense of agency?

• Did they see clearer links between regional change and future pathways?

• Did the program surface insights that government, industry and community should pay attention to?

• Did it create better conversations between schools, young people, employers, policymakers and local communities?

This is where evidence matters.

...........evidence as a way of listening properly, learning from participation, and making visible the forms of value that are often missed.

Storytelling is part of the evidence

One of the things FASTlab brings to this work is a belief that evidence does not only live in spreadsheets.

It also lives in stories.

• In the questions students ask.

• In the way they describe their region.

• In the ideas they develop when they are given permission to think seriously about the future.

• In the moments where a young person moves from “this is happening to us” to “I have something to say about this”.

  
  

For government and industry, this matters because the success of transition will not be measured only by infrastructure delivered or investment attracted. It will also be measured by whether communities can see themselves in the future being built.

From information to agency

There is a big difference between informing young people and empowering them.

Information says: here is what is happening.

Agency says: here is how you can understand it, question it and contribute to it.

The best education initiatives do both.

They help students build knowledge, but they also build confidence. They create enough structure to make complex issues accessible, while leaving enough space for young people to form their own views, ask their own questions and develop their own responses.

The transition to net zero will require more than technology, capital and policy alignment.

It will require trust.

It will require imagination.

It will require new relationships between government, industry, education and community.

And it will require young people to be treated not as an audience for transition messaging, but as

participants in shaping the future of their

regions.

A better starting point

The launch of Transitioning Economies – Your Say is a significant step because it starts in the right place.

• With young people.

• In place.

• Connected to real regional change.

• Focused not only on knowledge, but on voice, confidence, participation and future possibility.

  
  

For FASTlab, this is exactly the kind of work that matters: practical, place-based, evidence-informed and grounded in the belief that people should have a say in the systems that shape their lives.

The Hunter has powered Australia before.

Now its young people have an opportunity to help imagine what comes next.

And we should be listening.