Senior Sustainability Strategist

Ultimately, you’ll play a vital role in achieving RY’s vision… To create a world that believes in business.

We don’t just create belief through our client work – it’s just as important within our own agency too.

Sustainability has been a core aspect of our work at RY for over 20 years, and it’s continuing to grow, driven by an incredible team of ambitious strategists, designers and project managers. Working in the sweet spot between technical sustainability and creative communications, we help some of the world’s biggest, most complex and inspiring organisations define their strategy and then tell their story with credibility and flair.

• Lead on insightful sustainability reporting programmes. You’ll act as a lead strategist on client accounts to deliver insightful, rigorous and engaging sustainability reporting across a range of channels. Balancing technical knowledge with creative flair and compelling storytelling, your work will span the entire reporting lifecycle, from setting the direction inspired by the latest sustainability developments and themes, to defining the content strategy, advising on appropriate standards and frameworks, interviewing stakeholders, and partnering with copywriters and creatives to bring it all to life.
• Support clients’ alignment with key frameworks. You’ll work with analysts and strategists to help clients prepare for and align with key reporting and sustainability frameworks, standards and regulations (such as ESRS, ISSB, GRI, TCFD and PAI) through gap analysis, benchmarking, value chain mapping and identification of relevant disclosure requirements.
• Work on impactful sustainability strategy work. You’ll deliver progressive sustainability strategies for our clients – from in-depth double or context-based materiality assessments to ambitious and communicative strategic frameworks and targets.
• Develop topic-specific communications and campaigns. Whether communicating an organisation’s climate transition plan, or creating a communications plan around specific human rights issues, you’ll lead the development and execution of topic-specific communications and campaigns for clients across a range of sectors.
• Pitch to win. You’ll lead proposals, pitches and new business meetings, working with teams of project managers, creatives and business development partners to win work with new clients and grow existing accounts.
• Raise our profile. Naturally curious and entrepreneurial, you’ll proactively come up with inspiring ideas and unique points of view, and develop content for thought leadership and marketing material. You’ll draw upon your extensive network, building relationships and speaking at events to champion our thinking.
• Build sustainability knowledge internally. You’ll help upskill the broader RY team around sustainability topics, running Sustainability Sessions and training for colleagues in other functions, e.g. employee experience, brand, digital, film.

• You’re an entrepreneurial sustainability professional with a solid background in the agency or consultancy space. You’ve worked with a wide range of clients of different sizes and across multiple sectors and geographies, at various stages of their sustainability journey.
• You’re totally up to speed with the rapidly evolving landscape of sustainability and ESG frameworks, and have a solid working knowledge of ESRS and ISSB, with demonstrable experience applying these standards with clients. You also know the more established sustainability and reporting standards and frameworks inside out, including GRI, the IIRC Framework and TCFD, plus ratings and indices. Ideally, you’re familiar with context-based strategic frameworks too, such as Future-Fit and the Sustainable Development Performance Indicators.
• You have bucketloads of experience advising on and developing clients’ sustainability (and ESG) reporting, from first timers to those leading the pack. You may also have experience inputting into annual reporting.
• You’ve worked with organisations to develop their sustainability strategies and materiality assessments, including double materiality aligned with ESRS.