Search

Climate NI Mitigation Officer

Location : Remote Working/NIEL Office, 89 Loopland Drive, Belfast, BT6 9DW. There maybe occasional travel across Northern Ireland.

Contract: Fixed term to April 30th 2023

Salary: Equivalent to NICS EO1 £27,845 per annum pro rata.

Access to employer’s contributory pension scheme to a maximum of 7.5% per annum.

Hours: Part–time post (30 hours per week)

Reporting to: Climate NI Manager

Overview:

Northern Ireland (NI) requires urgent action on climate change. Non–government sectors need support to plan and deliver greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Northern Ireland Environment Link (delivers the Climate NI programme), working with relevant sector partners including Business in the Community, will develop and pilot a coordinated and cohesive approach to net–zero planning, progress reporting, and capacity building to enable delivery of immediate and long–term climate action.

This programme of action builds on the successful uptake of Climate NI adaptation planning support delivered through the step–by–step NI Adapts toolkit. By adapting the various resources and tested methods which exist, this programme will work with delivery partners to explore and pilot the development of a similar coordinated approach to enable use of consistent methods for greenhouse gas emissions reduction planning and progress reporting.

The post is part of a contract from the Department of Agriculture Environment and Rural Affairs Northern Ireland with Northern Ireland Environment Link.  This is a new post currently funded until the end of April 2023.  

The role will deliver the work programme agreed with DAERA, with assistance from other NIEL staff. This post is critical in enhancing the role and influence of Climate NI.  It will be supported by the Climate NI Manager, DAERA staff and Climate NI members, but a considerable degree of independence and research ability will be required.  Excellent communication and interpersonal skills are essential.  Flexibility and adaptability are critical characteristics and must be demonstrated in your application form from your past experience.

The project actions are: 

• Develop carbon literacy courses tailored to NI data and context: develop a framework for local government course and work with partners to adapt for SMEs. (Information from these courses would be freely available for other sectors to amend and use).
• Deliver carbon literacy courses to:
• Senior council staff
• SMEs
• Work with NI Government (DAERA) and two sectors (SMEs and Local government) to identify priority needs for data capture
• Use existing methods and resources (such as the Local Authority Greenhouse Gas Accounting Tool and Carbon Disclosure Project) to develop and pilot a baseline development method for local councils and SMEs (adjustable for other sectors) which enables gathering of robust, consistent and comparable data to inform organisational greenhouse gas emissions plans, and to share with government to inform national, regional and local climate action strategies
• Pilot training to organisations to support them in using the above methods to gather data, develop a baseline and report progress.
• Convene and facilitate NI ‘Mitigation: Supporting organisations Working Group’ to facilitate coordination and cohesive action across organisations providing mitigation support in NI. This group would begin by encouraging and supporting a cohesive and collaborative approach to delivering carbon literacy training across NI.  In the future it could provide a place to share and develop cohesive methods for other types of mitigation support, such as baseline toolkits, or more in–depth climate–literacy training.
• Monitor and evaluate carbon literacy courses and baseline toolkits and guide future development
• Deliver awareness raising and engagement focused communications to encourage organisations to begin their journey on the five–step ‘mitigation action’ cycle.
• Keeping up to date with scientific developments in climate science and providing this information to Climate NI partners, other contacts across all sectors and to the public.
• Supporting expanding the membership and influence of Climate NI.
• No job description can cover every issue which may arise and subsequently the postholder may be expected to carry out other duties broadly consistent with those itemised above.

Person Specification

Essential

These competencies must be clearly demonstrated in your past experience and highlighted within your application.  Additional years of experience within an essential area above the minimum may be seen as an advantage.

• A relevant third level qualification or at least two years’ demonstrable equivalent experience.
• Knowledge and understanding of climate change issues and the Northern Ireland context.
• Experience in data gathering, analysis, and reporting.
• Experience of building, understanding and maintaining strong partnerships and effective working relationships with partners, stakeholders and external organisations in the academic, voluntary, public and private sectors.
• Experience of communicating complex information concisely in a range of formats to a variety of audiences, in particular for training.
• Effective organisational skills including the ability to plan, manage and prioritise workloads for self and others, manage budgets, meet deadlines, plan and organise meetings and events and working knowledge of Microsoft Office and other IT software.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team.

Desirable 

• Additional relevant qualifications such as
• Education and/or Training delivery – in particular for adults
• Professional Qualifications in Carbon/ecological foot printing/Auditing
• Experience in data gathering, analysis and reporting focused on climate change/carbon literacy/energy monitoring and/or environmental auditing.
• Experience of developing and implementing training programmes.
• An understanding of how central and local government is administered and their services delivered.
• An understanding of the NI business sector

Application is through an application form provided by NIEL. Closing date for receipt of email applications is 12noon on 22nd April 2021.

Northern Ireland Environment Link is an Equal Opportunities Employer

Job offers are subject to references and that all information in the application is accurate and not misleading.

Download the Application Form here…

Download the FEC Monitoring Form here…

Please complete and return the above forms to: iona@nienvironmentlink.org