Walk in Interview, Apply for Sustainability Manager - EMEA Job in Dubai, UAE
Company Description*
Informa PLC is a leading international events, intelligence and scholarly research group.*
Our purpose is to champion the specialist. Through hundreds of powerful brands, we work with businesses and professionals in specialist markets, providing the connections, intelligence, and opportunities that help customers grow, do business, make breakthroughs, and take better-informed decisions. Informa is listed on the London Stock Exchange and a member of FTSE 100, with around 10,000 colleagues working in over 35 countries.
FasterForward is Informa’s approach to sustainable business.
In 2021, Informa was named top of our sector in the DJSI, ranked 5th in the FTSE100 for our approach to climate change by EcoAct’s annual ranking, and scored well in a collection of other rankings and indices including A- in the CDP. This builds on several awards over the last three years for being the most improved business on sustainability – something that we believe comes from our committed approach to this agenda.
To see more info about FasterForward, please click this link: https://www.informa.com/sustainability/faster-forward/
The sustainability team in Informa
In the last five years, Informa has invested significantly in sustainability, growing the team to 15 people spread across the business supported by 100s of sustainability champions.
Job Description*
Introduction*
We’re now at a crucial point in our FasterForward journey. To meet our targets by 2025, we need to continue to inspire and enable our colleagues across the company to embed sustainability into all aspect of what we do. As well as to continue to innovate, and pioneer on the solutions needed to address the sustainability challenges we face.
With our growing ambitions around our 1000+ international events, we’re looking for someone new to join our growing team to help us meet these challenges and learn from experienced sustainable events professionals whilst being part of developing the future of our industry.
The Sustainability Manager - EMEA will report into the Senior Sustainability Manager, who in turn reports into the Head of Sustainability. They will work alongside sustainability managers in the Americas, Asia and Sustainable Delivery Managers within the divisions themselves. The team is cognitively diverse with colleagues from several countries and a mix of backgrounds. These groups engage with people from across the business and so a highly communicative approach is key.
Informa operates a balanced working model, with some home working and some office working. Most of our sustainability team is based out of our London offices but we have colleagues in Shanghai and Florida. Our expectation is that the role would be hybrid working between home and office working, preferably in the UK, but other locations would be considered for the right candidate.
Some travel to other offices and events around EMEA is likely to be offered/required, potentially between 5 and 10 trips a year for a few days each.
Key Responsibilities
This role will primarily be working together with the Senior Sustainability Manager and the wider Sustainability team to support Informa’s progress to creating more sustainable events in our Informa Markets, Tech and Connect divisions, with a particular focus on Informa Markets as our largest division. This will involve helping implement our FasterForward and Sustainable Event Management Systems across the business and, in particular, this role will be focussed on supporting the events with the Fundamentals, Accelerator and ISO20121 systems (see our sustainability reports for more information on these).
The role will engage heavily with Informa’s divisional sustainability teams as well as other group roles including the event operations, marketing, content, sales and other commercial teams. The right individual will be responsible for supporting regional leadership on their sustainability ambitions, and encouraging further progress.
The individual is expected to assume the following key responsibilities plus any other reasonable duties as required. Each of these will be delivered in partnership with other sustainability team members:
Primary responsibilities
- Working as a member of the Informa Sustainability team to ensure Informa maintains its ambition of being a pioneer and a leader in regard to sustainability.
- Understanding the various EMEA businesses within Informa and identifying the key levers to creating a more sustainable business. This could include working with senior leadership, functional teams or individual brands and products.
- Listening to and understanding the EMEA events business to identify the best ways to effectively drive its sustainable development and play its part in achieving FasterForward and our wider sustainability goals
- Working with the event teams in Informa Markets and our other events businesses as a subject matter expert to help improve the sustainability of our events and drive business improvements.
- Influencing and supporting regional senior leadership and event management teams to identify the right solutions and guide their implementation across a portfolio of events beyond what the sustainability manager can engage with themselves on a day to day basis.
- To work with strategy and product development teams to help identify the commercial opportunities of developing new ways in which our platforms and knowledge services can help our customers and industries address the sustainability challenges they face. This will involve being able to have a top-level understanding of the sustainability agenda of many different industries and regions.
- To develop close relationships with a number of key events, working with them throughout the year to guide and accelerate their level of sustainability using our proprietary tools and frameworks – The Accelerator and The Fundamentals. Goals include identifying tangible improvements that can be made to improve the sustainability of the show. This can include but isn’t limited to waste reduction, procurement, energy efficiency, the inclusion of relevant sustainability content, sustainable communications, helping sell sustainability sponsorships, charity partnerships, and community programs. The projects must have demonstrable improvements on costs, revenues, reputation, operational impact, and/or market opportunity.
- Training up operational, marketing, content and other teams in sustainability topics to allow them to help manage show sustainability on an ongoing basis and mitigate risks from the agenda
- Working in collaboration with sustainability managers in the other regions to continually develop Informa’s sustainable events framework, processes and objectives as well as share best practices across the business.
- Engaging with key suppliers such as venues and event contractors to help them and us deliver our sustainability ambitions together. Line manage other members of the sustainability team where required (region and project dependent). It is anticipated that initially the EMEA role will have one direct report but the intention is that, long term, this could increase to two to three people.
- Support the expansion of ISO20121 across the Informa Markets EMEA business by providing subject matter expertise, second-tier auditing and a collaborative level of support to the local business manager responsible for the ISO programme.
Secondary roles
- Provide and coordinate the collation of relevant data to the Group Sustainability and Reporting Manager to allow us to meet reporting obligations.
- Work with the Senior Sustainability Manager, Group Head of Sustainability and comms professionals to ensure global sustainability is communicated and delivered in the region.
- Work with key stakeholders on the event industry’s collaboration to achieve a sustainable events industry.
- Act as a subject matter expert to local sustainability champions in offices to help coordinate local volunteering and environmental initiatives within the offices.
- Act as a local ambassador for group sustainability initiatives such as Walk the World.
- Identify and produce stories for sustainability newsletters, reporting and engagement.
- It is also possible that the successful candidate could take on a Group Wide specialist role in areas such as sustainable property, energy management, D&I or wellbeing at events etc, based on the particular needs, skillsets and career aspirations.
Qualifications
- Excellent, proactive, and persuasive communication skills. Wide variety of communication styles and the ability to understand your audience and tailor your style accordingly to a different team and office cultures.
- An ability to listen, investigate, collaborate on solutions, and work well with a large range of people.
- Practically minded, with a focus on what can be realistically achieved within an event environment, but not wedded to the status quo so we can move beyond what’s BAU (business as usual).
- A creative thinker who looks for ways to solve problems and take a project from A to B.
- An ability to identify and explore new innovative solutions needed to attain our long-term ambitions.
- Confidence and experience in working with senior leadership.
- An ability to work with strategy and product development teams to identify the business opportunities our brands could have through helping the industries we serve to address their sustainability challenges.
- A belief in the power of data and evidence to demonstrate a business case backed up by rigorous, but appropriate analysis and attention to detail.
- An ability to get involved in the detail of running an event but also to be able to step back and work with event teams to see the overall purpose of the event and how sustainability can best support it.
- Ability to be able to inspire others to action and help them prioritize initiatives in sustainability.
- An ability to talk knowledgeably across the broad sustainability agenda, not just the environment or community.
- Happy to manage own tasks responsibly and work independently, with little supervision but a desire to be part of the global sustainability team and regional event teams simultaneously.
- Ability to identify priorities and manage multiple projects and stakeholders simultaneously.
- Able to research an issue and find applicable suggestions to improve programs.
- Some regional and international travel to events and offices is required averaging approximately once a month (in a normal year) but with weighting towards the primary event seasons of Jan-Jun and Sep–Nov. Many events are held in Dubai, London, Cairo, Istanbul but also at other locations such as Bahrain, Milan, Monaco etc.
- Demonstrated interest in Sustainability and making an impact in the world is absolutely key. Ideally, this would be a graduate qualification in the topic but also a good breadth of topical reading on the agenda. We’d also consider someone with a strong interest in sustainability but with events experience instead of qualification in sustainability.
- Demonstrated continual professional development and reading of up-to-date knowledge in the field of sustainability.
- We never discriminate on age, but we’d expect, to meet all of these expectations, a minimum of 5 years’ experience in sustainability and/or the events industry would be normal.
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Additional Information*
Why work for Informa?*
25 days annual leave plus bank holidays, 4 days for volunteering and a day off for your Birthday!
Friendly staff who are all “expert’s experts” and additional training for development
Pension match and a range of other entirely flexible benefits to suit your needs
Regular Social Events and Networking opportunities
Share-Match options - become a shareholder!
We know that sometimes the 'perfect candidate' doesn't exist, and that people can be put off applying for a job if they don't fit all the requirements. If you're excited about working for us and have most of the skills or experience we're looking for, please go ahead and apply. You could be just what we need! We believe strongly in the value of diversity and creating supportive, inclusive environments where our colleagues can succeed. As such, Informa is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, ancestry, national origin, religion, or religious creed, mental or physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, citizenship, or other protected characteristics under local law.
Location: Sheikh Rashid Tower,World Trade Centre, Dubai
Job Type: Full-time
Keywords: Dubai job vacancies 2022 | Jobs in Dubai for Experts 2022 | Sustainability Manage Jobs in Dubai, UAE
