We are seeking a senior sustainability professional, with a focus on climate, to provide short-term capacity (maternity leave cover) to our impact management team.

Our Impact Management team have been global pioneers in shaping the practice of impact management since 2002. Through its impact management function, Bridges not only developed best-in-class approaches for incorporating ESG risks and opportunities into its investment processes, but also created a market-leading methodology to guide the team towards selecting the most impactful opportunities that addressed the UK’s biggest societal and environmental challenges.

Bridges Impact Management team were responsible for the mainstreaming of this approach and facilitating greater harmonisation of standards across the ESG, impact and sustainability sectors, through the Impact Management Project (a time-bound, field-building effort which the team ran from 2016-21). Members of the team are expected to execute on best practice standards and frameworks, and to keep pushing the boundaries of transparent and effective impact management.

We are looking for a sustainability/climate specialist to lead a project, working with our team of impact management, private equity and real estate professionals, to explore new opportunities and frontiers for climate-related investment in the UK and Europe. The candidate would ideally have experience in real estate to help us leverage our 10-year track record of delivering some of the UK’s most sustainable buildings.

Specifically, in this role, the individual will be integrated in the real estate fund team to:

• Research and map out the universe of climate-related private equity and real estate strategies in the UK and Europe, and identify new investable sub-segments and new frontiers where our skills and expertise could be utilised to innovate

• Support us to better communicate our real estate sustainability approach and the impact of our existing portfolios to our stakeholders

• Support on our cross-firm strategy to deliver our Net Zero goals

• Support the delivery of best-in-class impact and sustainability performance across the portfolio, working with the wider impact team

• Explore opportunities for system- and market-level engagement to enhance the impact that the real estate sector can have on climate, as a whole

Priorities for the role

There are several priorities for the role:

• Team: Reporting to one of the Co-CEOs, this role will be working across impact activities within Bridges and the fund teams. The individual will be expected to have strong stakeholder management skills to understand and enhance existing processes and strategies in a fairly short time period.

• Impact measurement and engagement: This role will support – and identify opportunities to improve – how we measure, improve and disclose the climate impact of our investments, and support on execution of our firm-wide climate strategy.

• Impact-led strategy and sourcing: A core focus of this role will be to use sustainability expertise to help us better map the ways that our asset classes can have a positive impact on climate. This work requires deep expertise and experience leading innovative research and stakeholder consultation exercises.

• Advocacy: Our Impact Team has played an important global role, co-ordinating dynamic pieces of research to provoke and engage thought-leadership across a variety of stakeholders. This role will ideally increase our contribution to the real estate sustainability conversation through identifying opportunities for us to make an outsize contribution.

Key attributes we are looking for

• A passion for impact management to drive social change: We believe in achieving positive outcomes for people and planet.

• Demonstration of research capabilities and a desire to continue to learn, with subsequent ability to embed and execute a range of ideas and methodologies.

• Ability to think differently: Bridges is a pioneer in the impact investing, and impact management field. Remaining at the forefront requires logical and analytical rigour, a willingness to question every assumption, and an ability to be creative and solutions-driven.

• Ability to build trust, and work effectively as a team: We can only achieve our audacious goals if we work collaboratively; and this can only be achieved through mutual trust. Everything we do must be fully transparent and open to scrutiny. This requires excellent interpersonal skills, and absolute integrity.

• Ability to be detail-focused and solutions-oriented: We are accountable to all of our stakeholders. This requires the proven ability to prioritise effectively, and be comfortable managing tight deadlines and take on board feedback in pursuit of a final outcome

• Ability to communicate effectively: This requires the ability to communicate fluently with a wide variety of stakeholders, internally and externally, and to incorporate feedback, through the use of excellent written and oral communication skills and a commitment to accuracy.

Suitable candidates will have:

• 10+ years of experience working in climate investing, sustainable real estate development or sustainability

• Market-leading sustainability/ climate knowledge and practical experience

• Exceptional interpersonal skills: adept at working with multiple stakeholders at all levels.

• A good understanding of investment management

Compensation and Expenses

The remuneration offered will be commensurate with experience.

• The health and wellbeing of our employees is really important to us. We will offer a range of benefits to you, including enhanced family friendly policies, employee healthcare benefits, employee protection benefits, an employee assistance programme, alongside other well-being initiatives to promote a healthier working environment.

• You will get 25 days’ annual leave, pro rated to reflect the term of the appointment, plus bank holidays, and a 5% contribution to the company pension scheme.

Terms and Conditions of Appointment

Timing – The appointment will ideally be made by December 2023.

We expect this contract to have a term of 10 – 12 months.

Next steps

You’ll answer some questions that are related to the day-to-day job. After the job closes on the 30th October 2023, your answers will go through our sift process: all answers will be anonymised, randomised and then reviewed by a panel of reviewers.

If you are shortlisted, we’ll invite you to the next step, which will be first and second round interviews with some of our colleagues. Once we have concluded the process, we would like the successful candidate to start as soon as possible following their appointment.