Job Description
Sustainability Officer
Full-time, Fixed Term (9 to 12 months maternity cover)
Salary £38,960 – £43,602 per annum (pay award pending)
Plus generous benefits package
Hybrid / flexible working
About the role
We have a fantastic opportunity for an experienced Sustainability Officer to join our team.
We are looking for a confident, personable, and adaptable professional with a passion for sustainability. We are particularly keen to hear from you if you’ve work experience in sustainability and environment sector.
You will be responsible for managing and co-ordinating the delivery of the National Galleries of Scotland Environmental Response Plan. This involves delivering the strategy for NGS, co-ordinating colleague engagement to support behaviour change and managing projects to reduce environmental impact and carbon emissions. You will also ensure compliance to Scottish Government legislation for public bodies climate change duties and biodiversity duties for annual reporting and target setting.
The difference you’ll make
You will work with colleagues internally and externally to promote the sustainability work of NGS and gather knowledge on sector improvements, innovation, and best practise. Reporting to the Director of Operations you will:
• Maintain our Sustainability Strategy, Environmental Policy, Environmental Response plan and other relevant plans, including monitoring, and annually updating them.
• Oversee projects across departments, providing support with project management, research, knowledge sharing and procurement and contract management.
• Administer the monthly carbon reporting on utilities, waste, and business travel, including reviewing utilities invoices, checking any abnormal consumption, counter charging third parties and seeking energy savings.
• Produce accurate reports including:
Annual internal Environmental Sustainability Report for NGS audit committee.
Mandatory external public sector Climate Change Duties Reporting and Biodiversity Duty reporting.
• Deliver colleague engagement sessions on targeted topics for example waste, low carbon travel, energy efficiency.
• Manage our internal environmental groups, including all communications, facilitation of engagement projects and support for personal projects.
• Keep project teams updated on new legislation in relation to buildings, guiding on sector advances and maintaining links between the current NGS sustainability work and the planning for buildings.
• Create and maintain meaningful partnerships and managing joint projects with external organisations.
• Keep up to date on relevant legislation to ensure compliance and respond to sector developments. Communicate updates to relevant contacts internally.
• Responding to consultations at national and local level on behalf on NGS. Keep abreast of relevant grants and funding opportunities.
Who we are looking for
In answering our quick questions tell us more about you, how you meet the requirements, and what you will bring to the role. This will be your opportunity to stand out as well as tell us what you are looking for from us. To succeed in this role, you’ll need the following range of knowledge, skills, and experience:
• Degree educated in a relevant discipline.
• Previous experience working in a similar sustainability and environment role, ideally in the public sector.
• Excellent knowledge of environment management and current sustainability legislation, best practice, and initiatives- including but not limited to energy, water, waste, travel, waste, biodiversity, procurement, construction, adaptation.
• Knowledge of the measures needed to reduce an organisation’s carbon footprint.
• Skilled at analysing data to produce articulate and accurate reports for internal and external stakeholders.
• Exceptional communication, training and presentation skills, with strong attention to detail.
• Ability to speak knowledgeably and accurately on current sustainability matters to expert/non-expert audiences.
• Experience of successfully co-ordinating multiple projects, meeting deadlines.
• Excellent IT skills including MS Office.
• Proven ability to define, communicate and motivate the team to deliver sustainability goals and objectives.
It would also be great if you have:
• Knowledge of public sector carbon and sustainability reporting as well as reports for wider environmental legislation.
• Experience in promoting environmental initiatives.
We are National Galleries of Scotland
Our three Edinburgh galleries are the National, Modern and Portrait. We house and look after Scotland’s amazing world-class art collection – one of the finest in the world. Step inside and explore treasures from Botticelli and Titian to the very best modern art to contemporary portraits of pop culture icons. And, as you’d expect, the world’s greatest collection of Scottish art, our national collection. We also have an outstanding collection of Western art from the late Middle Ages to the present day.
We’re a space for thinking, dreaming, doing, and playing. Soak up the art. Meet friends in the cafés. Have a family picnic surrounded by the sculptures in the Modern grounds. Be inspired by our amazing art films. Choose your own experience. There is no one way to enjoy Scotland’s national collection. We are yours to discover.
As well as displaying our art at our three Edinburgh sites, we also share it through an active programme of partnership across Scotland, the rest of the UK and abroad, as well as online.
We conserve and research our collections and we are committed to reaching the widest possible audience through our ambitious plans. Visitor numbers to our sites in Edinburgh totalled an average of 2.5m visitors a year in the years prior to the global pandemic.
What’s important to us
We make art work for everyone. That’s our purpose and it drives everything we do. This is an exciting time for us, as we move forward with our engaging strategic vision: Art for Scotland: Inspiration for the World.
We’re putting our audience at the heart of what we do. Matching Scotland’s rich collection, our expertise and creativity with the needs and wants of our visitors. Finding new ways to connect with more people and create an innovative, inclusive organisation that can meet the challenges of our ever-evolving world.
We’re committed to looking at how we operate as well as how we engage our audiences. We will play our part in tackling the Climate Emergency, and we’re embedding Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in the way we work. We want everyone to feel a sense of belonging and freedom to be themselves at work or at play with us.
What’s on offer for you
Our colleagues will tell you great things about working here. We aim to ensure the National Galleries of Scotland is a great place to work, where our people thrive in a culture where we are trusted, empowered, and engaged to achieve our true potential. We offer a range of benefits to promote healthy working lifestyles for all our colleagues. Details specific to this role are:
Salary
£38,960 – £43,602 per annum pro rata (pay award pending). Starting salaries will normally be at the minimum rate depending on experience.
Hours
37 hours per week working 08.30 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. Monday to Thursday and 08.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. on a Friday with a one-hour unpaid lunch break each day.
Holidays
When you first join, you’ll get 25 days annual leave per year plus 11.5 public and privilege holidays pro-rata depending on hours. After 5 years your annual leave will increase to 30 days.
Where you’ll be based
You will be based at Modern One, 75 Belford Road, Edinburgh, where free onsite car parking is available. However, you’ll work across all of our Galleries based in the heart of Edinburgh – the National, Portrait, and Modern (One and Two).
Pension
We are a Civil Service Pension employer. You get to choose if you want a defined benefit or stakeholder pension. The benefits of joining the scheme include generous employer contributions to your future pension, life assurance, and options to increase your pension. If you join the alpha Civil Service pension scheme our contribution will be 27.1% for this role.
Other benefits
Family friendly working policies, free or discounted entry to various visitor attractions, staff discount at our shops and cafés, Cycle to Work Scheme, wellbeing support and services including our Employee Assistance Programme.
The closing date for completed applications is 12 noon on Monday, 06 November 2023.
Please apply directly via our careers portal: Careers National Galleries of Scotland
Please note that the successful candidate will be subject to Basic Disclosure Scotland security clearance.
National Galleries of Scotland is a charity registered in Scotland (No. SC003728)
