Role: Principal Consultant, Climate and ESG Strategy and Reporting  

Location: London, Glasgow, Oxfordshire, Manchester, Flexible

Our vision is to create a safe and sustainable world

Ricardo plc is a global strategic, environmental, and engineering consulting company, listed on the London Stock Exchange. With over 100 years of engineering excellence and employing close to 3,000 employees in more than 20 countries, we provide exceptional levels of expertise in delivering leading-edge and innovative cross-sector sustainable products and solutions. Every day, we enable our customers to solve the most complex and dynamic challenges to help achieve a safe and sustainable world.

Energy & Environment, one of Ricardo plc’s five operating business units, is a leader in sustainability consultancy, solving complex environmental challenges through industry-leading analysis, advice and data. With more than 40 years of heritage in addressing air quality, environmental and sustainability issues, our customers value us for our deep understanding and breadth of services covering the entire value chain from evidence, policy & strategy to implementation.

Purpose:

We are experiencing an increasing demand for climate & ESG strategy and reporting services which is outstripping our team’s resources. We are seeking to recruit an experienced principal level consultant to lead and deliver climate & ESG strategies and reporting/disclosure solutions for our clients. Our unrivalled technical excellence provides clients with greater confidence in decision making and business plann to really help to drive our business forward, building on an already highly successful delivery team.  We are looking for a professional and experienced individual looking to enhance their skills further within a rewarding and dynamic environmental consultancy business with the opportunity for excellent career growth.

Key accountabilities:

Within a collaborative and supportive team of consultants, you will be responsible for winning and delivering projects covering climate and ESG strategy and disclosure and on wider sustainability strategy implementation programmes and reporting practices. . Client liaison, project management and technical delivery will be required from initial client engagement through to provision of final reports. To assist the growth of our team, the successful candidate will:

• Be capable of taking over, managing and delivering existing and new climate and ESG management projects, including TCFD, CDP, climate transition plans and scenario analysis.
• Be the client lead for key projects, demonstrating experience of working face-to-face with clients and managing their expectations.
• Undertake a project management role, controlling budgets and timings, and allocating tasks to colleagues as required.
• Liaise with specialist sub-contractors and build relationships internally and externally.
• Input technical expertise to lead climate and ESG strategy and reporting client proposals.
• Contribute to the evolution of Ricardo’s climate and ESG commercial offerings by designing innovative client focused technical and reporting compliance solutions.
• Ensure appropriate profile raising and marketing of Ricardo’s services and capabilities.

Key competencies and experience, you will:

• Have practical career experience and be able to demonstrate relevant technical capability, effective project management and excellent communication skills.
• Have a higher education qualification (Bachelor’s Degree) in an environmental, sustainability or financial accounting discipline, or otherwise to have a good track record working in an environmental or sustainability role, so that you can demonstrate your knowledge.
• Ideally have experience of working in the consultancy sector, to demonstrate that you have the necessary commercial awareness, but we are also interested to talk to candidates currently performing sustainability or ESG roles directly within industry, especially where they demonstrate strong commercial awareness.
• Able to help clients develop and execute climate and ESG strategies to enhance and support integration into their sustainability programmes and voluntary/compliance reporting practices .
• Excellent knowledge and practical experience of working with voluntary and mandatory sustainability standards, frameworks and ESG ratings and rankings is highly desirable. In particular: GRI, IFRS/ISSB, EFRAG (European Sustainability Reporting Standards), UN Global Compact, TCFD, UN SDGs, EU Taxonomy, MSCI, Sustainalytics, FTSE4Good, S&P Global, EcoVadis and CDP.
• Demonstrate technical expertise across the following areas:
• Climate and ESG strategy development and processes.
• Climate-related and ESG materiality assessment and gap analysis.
• TCFD knowledge, climate transition planning, risk analysis and enterprise risk management integration and reporting.
• Climate-related scenario and financial risk modelling.
• Be able to advise clients on the current and upcoming regulatory trends and voluntary developments shaping the sustainability / non-financial disclosure landscape – and the organisations driving this agenda (across NGOs, IGOs, ESG ratings and rankings agencies, etc.)
• Have a deep understanding of the links between climate change, business risk and value creation.
• Having experience of annual and integrated reporting and an understanding of TCFD guidance, UK FRC and FCA requirements and/or corporate risk reporting, auditing and scenario planning experience would be advantageous.
• Having experience of identifying and developing business opportunities is desirable.
• Knowledge of sustainable finance, financial accounting and reporting would also be beneficial.
• Need to hold a Full UK Driving licence for this position.

Skills and behaviours, you will demonstrate the following skills and behaviours:

• Analytical skills with ability to identify, develop and implement solutions.
• Excellent writing skills to communicate clearly and without errors – accuracy and attention to detail are vital.
• Strong client and stakeholder communication skills e.g., influencing, negotiation, presentation and relationship management skills.
• Project management skills that demonstrate ability to manage and account for time spent, and to deliver work on time and budget.
• Team working and leadership and ability to coordinate and prioritise activities to ensure delivery of agreed targets.
• Assisting with the development of climate and ESG thought leadership, our external profile and also with clients.
• High levels of drive and commitment; a self-starter, problem solver with the ability to turn ideas into reality.
• Assisting with mentoring others to support the growth of the Sustainability Business Area.
• High level of computer literacy, including familiarity with the full Microsoft Office software suite and potentially industry analysis tools.
• A flexible approach – able to see where help is needed and support colleagues as necessary.
• Be comfortable juggling a variety of tasks in a sometimes fast-paced operational environment.

Working here

Ricardo is an exciting and rewarding place to work and you have the opportunity to make a difference. You will work with teams of talented, dedicated, and supportive individuals. Alongside having a fantastic opportunity to develop your career with us through our broad range of projects, mentoring opportunities and a personalised approach to your learning and development. We are always keen to hear from people who have driven, ambition and a flair for innovative thinking.

Wellbeing and work life balance

We offer flexible approaches to work, whether that's working from home, being in the office, or as a hybrid worker. We're happy to discuss flexible working arrangements. Wellbeing is at the core to our culture, allowing employees to flourish and to achieve their full potential. Our People are important to us, and we take pride in our wellbeing programmes and policies that support individuals including flexible working, carers policy, mental health first aiders and readily available support through our extensive Employee Assistance programme. 

Diversity, Equality and Inclusion statement

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person's potential, and we'll help you reach yours. We have an ambitious diversity, equality, and inclusion approach as explained here. We value diversity; recognising that a more diverse workforce creates a richer and more varied working environment. Diversity also drives innovation, by allowing us to offer our clients the best consultancy service that we can. As part of our commitment to engage positively and pro-actively with all our employees to ensure an inclusive culture, we are a recognised as a 'disability confident' employer.

Benefits

Our core benefits include 25 days' annual leave, plus 8 flexible bank holidays, a competitive company pension scheme, life assurance and professional subscriptions reimbursement. We also offer a wide range of flexible benefits to suit your lifestyle. 

Once you have submitted your application a member of our Recruitment Team will be in touch. Please be aware that the timing can vary dependent on the volume of applications that we receive for each role and in some cases, we may start to review applications prior to the closing date.