The Role

The Senior Sustainability Manager is a new role that will report to the Head of Sustainability, and will be a central member of our sustainability team. The role will provide further capacity and depth to the team across all areas of sustainability including environmental and social impact, strategy, regulation, reporting and disclosure, communication and engagement, and play a key part in helping Unite Students fulfil its ambition to be a truly sustainable business.

What You`ll Be Doing

• Inform and steer the ongoing development and evolution of our sustainability strategy especially around our social ambition, targets and approach, in line with overall business strategy and stakeholder expectations.

• Oversee development and implementation of activity and plans to deliver positive social impact across all business functions including a flagship social impact initiative.

• Measure and report the impact of community and social impact activity in line with widely used frameworks, including benchmarking performance internally and externally.

• Plan and implement our internal sustainability comms and engagement activity working with other key internal stakeholders to help drive cultural and behavioural changes needed to deliver our sustainability ambitions.

• Support internal and external communication of sustainability strategy to improve awareness, engagement, and participation among different audiences, including creation and maintenance of content such as web articles, social media content, documentation, guidance, toolkits, policies etc.

• Support reporting and third party verification and audit of our community and social impact and wider sustainability related activity, including annual report and other periodic reporting as required.

What We`re Looking for in You

• Passionate about sustainability and keen to make a real difference, with a strong background in corporate sustainability. Experience planning and implementing sustainability programmes across large multi-site businesses, inspiring others, and working with different functions and teams to create a real and measurable impact.

• A good working knowledge and experience of all areas of sustainability including environmental and social impact as well as regulation, reporting and disclosure.

• Familiarity with sustainability and ESG regulation and voluntary frameworks and schemes covering commitments, reporting and disclosure, and experience measuring and reporting on social initiatives including familiarity with social value and social impact reporting frameworks and tools.

• Great communication, people and influencing skills, able to work collaboratively and supportively across different functions and sites to drive up engagement and participation.

• Experience running behavioural change and engagement programmes aiming to encourage and enable lasting environmentally and socially responsible living habits.

• Preferable a degree level or higher qualification in a relevant sustainability related subject, and membership of a relevant professional body (ICRS, IEMA, etc).

• Bristol based and able to work at least 2 days in our Bristol Head Office, with an expectation of at least 3 days either in our head office or on one of our sites.

What You`ll Get in Return

• An annual bonus so you can share in the company`s success
• 25 days` paid holiday
• Pension - based on how much you save, we`ll contribute 1% more
• Flexible working opportunities
• Shared Parental Leave - 18 weeks full pay
• Other benefits include, ShareSave, Bike to Work, Charity Match, amazing discounts and more!

About Unite Students

Founded in 1991, Unite Students is a FTSE 100 business and the UK`s leading provider of purpose-built student accommodation. You can find us in 25 leading university towns and cities, with 74,000 students calling US home! We are driven by our values, culture, and a commitment to develop diverse and inclusive teams, filled with positive energy and new ideas.

Instinctive inclusion. We know that to create and maintain a happy healthy organisation, we have to work hard to ensure inclusion isn`t just what we do but who we are.

People make Unite Students. Employees, students and neighbours all contribute to building environments where we can all thrive.

Room for Everyone

We`re proud to be an employer that embraces individuality, and we`re passionate about building inclusive teams. We focus on creating a collaborative culture where you can be you, where your voice is heard, and where you can truly belong. We take great pride in being rated Gold Investors in People and are constantly striving to provide the highest standard of learning and development opportunities and professional pathways for our people. Building a home for success, for both our employees and students, requires exceptional people with a passion for creating room for everyone, doing what`s right, keeping US safe, and raising the bar. Join us as we build better experiences for students that live with us.

We are US.