Group Sustainability Manager - Agriculture

Overview: This is an exciting role in Nomad Foods’s Group Sustainability team. This role will lead the development and deployment of Nomad’s Sustainable Agriculture programme in key commodities such as vegetables, soy, palm oil and poultry.
This will involve working in close partnership with Nomad’s Procurement, Agriculture Operations Team, and external partners to understand the origins of agricultural commodities sourced, ensuring that workers and communities are safeguarded, ecosystems protected, environmental impacts reduced, and animal welfare ensured throughout our supply chain.
The role requires strong leadership ability, exceptional project and stakeholder management skills, excellent communication capability, analytical skills, and resilience to cope with competing priorities among internal and external stakeholders. Responsibilities:

Develop and implement policies, procedures and programmes for the sustainable sourcing of agricultural commodities with a particular focus on vegetables, poultry, soy and palm oil. Activity will be centred around:

• Achieving supply chain traceability to understand risks and opportunities.
• Ensuring the procurement of certified sustainable raw material – i.e. RSPO certified palm or RTRS certified soy.
• Working with vegetable suppliers to promote sustainable farming practices and participation in the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Farmer Self-Assessment.
• Support cross-functional projects related to enhancing animal welfare within Nomad Foods’ poultry and red meat supply chains.
• Implementing initiatives in Nomad’s upstream agriculture supply chain to reduce Nomad’s scope 3 carbon impact.
• With the Procurement and Quality functions, embed sustainable sourcing into procurement practices and with suppliers to deploy programmes effectively for a more sustainable, resilient supply chain.
• Support Nomad Foods’ Agriculture Operations team develop and operationalise the Nomad Foods Agriculture Purpose and Ambition (NAPA) framework, to deliver a more environmentally and economically sustainable agricultural supply chain.
• Identify, develop and manage strategic relationships with programme partners and NGOs to ensure programmes are robust, credible, and impactful, driving long lasting socio-economic and environmental improvements
• Build and maintain excellent understanding of sustainable agriculture, emerging risks, opportunities and best practice in key value chains, and of the expectations of key stakeholders, adapting Nomad’s policies and programmes accordingly.
• Establish and monitor KPIs to enable effective tracking and reporting of programme progress concisely to internal and external stakeholders.
• Support the engagement of Marketing teams to leverage sustainable sourcing and enable our brands to deliver credible and authentic claims / communications that build brand equity.
• Collaborate with peers, civil society and local community multi-stakeholder initiatives to address systemic supply chain challenges effectively.
• Develop internal and external communications, together with relevant training and capability building activities to build awareness of and support for programme goals, progress, and impacts.
• Contribute to external reporting requirements concerning sustainable sourcing such as Nomad’s annual Sustainability Report, Modern Slavery Act statement and investor disclosures (FTSE4Good, CDP and DJSI).

Qualifications: Essential:

• Deep understanding of sustainability challenges within global agricultural supply chain and pragmatic interventions businesses can take to mitigate them.
• Clear understanding of business needs and impact of role upon those needs.
• Relevant degree in agronomy, regenerative agriculture, biodiversity, sustainability, or related disciplines.
• Demonstrable experience in the areas of animal welfare, regenerative agriculture, biodiversity and decarbonisation within relevant value chains.
• Experience in compliance and/or claims development.
• Experience working in a fast-paced results focused environment.
• Ability to influence, engage and negotiate with a range of stakeholders at different levels of seniority both inside and outside the business.
• Able to build effective working relationships and deliver results in wide range of environments and cultures.

Desirable

• Relevant NGOs, industry associations, certification schemes and programme delivery partners – WWF, SAI, RTRS, RSPO, Food Drink Europe Agriculture Committee, Soil Health Industry Platform (SHIP)
• Post graduate degree in a related discipline.
• Experience in an international environment within a matrix organisation, working cross-functionally and with varied stakeholder groups.
• Experience in dealing with environmental and social non-governmental organisations (NGOs), field-project staff, local communities, and the scientific community.
• Languages in addition to English.