Sustainability Specialist

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About Network Rail

Join Network Rail - Where People and Connections Matter

Vacancy: Sustainability Specialist

Location: London, Stratford Place, or York, George Stephenson House

Salary: £55,596 to £63,797

Role Type: Permanent

Network Rail Benefits - To find out about what benefits we offer, click here. At Network Rail, you will have a clear development path with access to training and additional qualifications. You can enjoy a range of employee benefits, such as up to 28 days annual leave, 75% of Leisure Travel and Season Ticket for travel, a range of pension options, flexible and agile working arrangements, healthcare, discounts on shopping, gym memberships, and much more.

At Network Rail, we're dedicated to keeping passengers and freight moving safely and efficiently across the country. When you join us, you're not just part of a team - you're part of something that matters to millions. We believe that our people are at the heart of what we do, and every role plays a vital part in building a better, more connected railway. Click here to learn more.

We're committed to creating a diverse, inclusive workplace that reflects the communities we serve. To discover more about our ED&I commitments, click here. We value flexibility and understand the importance of a healthy work-life balance. As a Disability Confident Leader, we'll do everything we can to accommodate any needs throughout the recruitment process.

If you're ready to make a real difference, we'd love to hear from you!

Brief Description

We have an exciting opportunity within the S&SD team in Eastern Routes Capital Programmes for a Sustainability Specialist. Our vision is to deliver industry-leading projects safely and sustainably.

The role offers the opportunity to influence the sustainability performance in Network Rail's biggest portfolio of enhancement and renewal projects. This role will balance and assess environmental, social value, and economic opportunities and risks for a portfolio of projects.

As the Sustainability Specialist, you'll play a pivotal role in providing professional environment and sustainability advice and support. This includes managing the relevant assurance and governance processes and supporting the leadership team with the management and implementation of environment and sustainability improvement programmes.

This role can be based out of our London or York offices. It will involve some travel for meetings and site visits across the Eastern region of Network Rail. This role requires working in the office a minimum of three working days a week.

Join our team and be part of our mission to create a sustainable future! Apply today and let's make a difference together.

About the role (External)

Key Accountabilities

1. Deliver functional support through input to project remits, supplier tender reviews, pre-construction information, input to supplier meetings, and support key project assurance working closely with project management, engineering, and the construction management teams to facilitate compliance with legislation, standards, and processes.
2. Implement the sustainability aspects of the Safety and Sustainability strategy, working with all relevant business areas and the supply chain to facilitate successful delivery, including feeding into the delivery safety and sustainability action plans, and helping to coordinate activities and report against progress.
3. Develop the desired sustainability culture throughout the business unit by leading by example on behaviours and delivering the Capital Programmes S&SD strategy at a delivery level, to achieve continuous improvement and adoption of best practices.
4. Develop internal and external sustainability communications such as cascades, briefings, lessons learned, case studies, and newsletters to facilitate a learning culture within Capital Programmes to improve safety performance.
5. Provide guidance on trends in sustainability data for the delivery teams to facilitate coordinated project level assurance, local delivery level improvement opportunities, and focus for supplier engagement such as time to talks.
6. Provide expert technical advice on environmental management and sustainability requirements as part of the planning, design, and delivery of projects, including sustainability certification and environment survey and consent requirements to facilitate the successful execution of the programme of works and to manage the environment and social management system locally.
7. Provide Capital Programmes and Network Rail specialist support on investigation panels of contractor-led Level 2 investigations, where required, to facilitate maximum learning from events to improve environmental performance.
8. Provide support to the teams in becoming a learning organisation through supporting on implementation of outcomes from assurance activities and learning from accidents and incidents.
9. Develop and manage relationships with internal and external stakeholders, liaising with regulatory bodies and other agencies, developing partnerships with NGOs, education centres, and local charities to support sharing of the key information required for the sustainability performance of the delivery team.

Job Skills, Experience and Qualifications

Essential

• Practitioner member of IEMA or equivalent professional institute e.g. CIEEM (or equivalent through experience).
• Degree level qualification (minimum UK level 6) in environment/sustainability or other relevant subject, or equivalent through experience.
• Demonstrable significant experience in managing environment and/or social value matters, with involvement in construction programmes across multi-discipline areas.
• Demonstrable in-depth understanding of environment and social value legislation.
• Demonstrable experience in implementing successful sustainability improvements.
• Demonstrable experience of working with management systems (e.g. ISO or equivalent).
• Demonstrable knowledge of project management and/or understanding of the project management lifecycle within the railway industry, or a similar operating environment.
• Demonstrable skills in initiating and building positive working relationships with customers, their team, and stakeholders.
• Demonstrable experience of bringing different people together; promoting working as one team.
• Demonstrable experience of challenging self and others to improve services and approaches.
• Demonstrable experience of thinking through the cost, business priorities, and customer implications of their decisions.
• Demonstrable experience of positively representing themselves/ their team within and external to the business.

Desirable

• Masters level qualification in relevant subject.
• Demonstrable experience managing specific topics areas such as biodiversity and ecology risk management.
• Full member of IEMA or equivalent professional institute e.g. CIEEM.
• Qualification in incident investigation.
• Experience applying certification or frameworks to projects (such as CEEQUAL, BREEAM or Common Social Impact Framework).
• Demonstrable experience of collaborating with other organisations for a positive sustainability outcome.

Research suggests that individuals from underrepresented groups may be less likely to apply for a job if they don't meet all the listed criteria. We are building a diverse and inclusive place to work where people of all backgrounds can thrive. We encourage you to apply for this role. If this isn't the job for you, there may be other roles available in the wider team.

How to apply (External)

Salary: £55,596 to £63,797
Closing date: 6th May 2025. - Late applications will not be accepted.

Interviews will take place the week commencing 19th May 2025.

Click apply now to apply.

You can visit Evenbreaks Career Hive for advice on accessibility support if you're unsure of the options available. Should you require any reasonable adjustments/modifications, please add a note to your application.

Network Rail Benefits - To find out about what benefits we offer, click here.

All offers of employment are conditional upon satisfactory completion of pre-employment checks. Click here for more information.

Drugs and Alcohol Standard:

All prospective candidates will be required to undergo and pass a drugs and alcohol test. Your application will be rescinded if you record a positive test. All positive drugs and alcohol test results for prospective candidates will be securely held on Sentinel database and a 5 year suspension from applying for a safety-critical role, a role which requires PTS certification or a Key Safety role on Network Rail Managed Infrastructure will be enforced.

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