Chief Sustainability Officer

Job Introduction

Job Title: Chief Sustainability Officer

Location: Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council, Civic Centre, Bournemouth. Hybrid working with a minimum of two days in the office in Bournemouth. Some evening meetings.

Salary:  £96,179 (£68,917 base salary plus £27,262 recruitment and retention supplement) 

Job Type: Full-time, Permanent

Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole is a place where people and nature, coast and towns come together to offer a wealth of potential. And at BCP Council we want to realise this potential. 

And this includes in our mission to reach net zero as a council by 2030 and as a region by 2045. We’ve made good progress on our journey, but we have a lot to do to meet our targets and this role requires expertise, leadership and tenacity across the council, local and regional partners and key sectors.

A lot of this work is ground-breaking – quite literally – so we’re looking for someone who combines innovative strategic thinking with the ability to deliver at pace. From ramping up our own decarbonisation programme, securing funding or exploring our towns’ unique potential for heat networks, you’ll be able to make tangible progress towards our targets and measure our impact.

This is a key strategic role that leads BCP Council’s sustainability agenda, acts as an ambassador both inside and outside and drives a programme of activity across services. You’ll have a proven track record in sustainability leadership, experience leading and delivering sustainability projects within a complex organisation and the ability to work proactively with partners. Expertise in energy and decarbonisation are an advantage, as is experience engaging and influencing critical external stakeholders from central government to private sector suppliers, public sector partners and local community groups.

Your work will help elected members and officers make informed decisions that will benefit our residents, businesses and visitors for years to come. You’ll have strong and deft stakeholder management skills and use data and evidence to change minds, get by-in and enthuse others to deliver. Supported by an agile, motivated and professional team, you’ll be comfortable working across a range of issues, drawing on your own and others’ specialist knowledge to assess risks and opportunities. 

In return, you’ll know that you’ve made a major and lasting contribution to better the sustainability of our beautiful area and benefit our residents, partners, businesses and visitors.

While your work base will be Bournemouth Civic Centre, we operate a hybrid working pattern and an expectation that you’ll be in the offices in Bournemouth, Christchurch or Poole two days a week. BCP Council supports flexible working and we are open to discussion about flexible working patterns.

About BCP Council

BCP Council provides services to a diverse community of 400,000 residents and employs more than 5,000 people. Our area includes over 15 miles of beautiful world-renowned coastline. We can offer career defining roles to transform and improve services. By working with us, you can help deliver a vision of a thriving, word-class, prosperous and inclusive place for generations to come.

Our Benefits

We offer an excellent benefits package to colleagues. Find out more on our website.

As a result of the creation of BCP Council in 2019, we are working on simplifying our terms and conditions of service and will be creating a single pay structure which is to be applicable for all employees. It is important to us that we offer benefits that our colleagues value as part of their total employment package and we are reviewing these to make sure we have it right. We have been in a process of collective bargaining since 2019 and have positively worked forward to reach an agreed position with the unions for the new contractual offer. This has taken longer than we hoped and therefore we are having to consider all alternative avenues available to enable us to remove inequality in the organisation as a result of bringing together 3 councils. 

We are in the process of establishing a timescale for implementation, and all colleagues joining us will be included in these changes. We want to reassure everyone that whichever route is taken to reach the new terms and conditions, we can honour continuous service and there will not be any job reduction as a result of the implementation of Pay and Reward.  If you have any questions at all about this process, please feel free to raise this with the hiring manager.