Principal Consultant - Climate Change Adaptation

Overview

Role: Principal Consultant - Climate Adaptation

Location: London, Oxfordshire ( Harwell), Bristol, Manchester, Glasgow, Homebased, Flexible

Role ID: 2023-1918

Our vision is to create a safe and sustainable world

Ricardo plc is a global strategic, environmental, and engineering consulting company, listed on the London Stock Exchange. With over 100 years of engineering excellence and employing close to 3,000 employees in more than 20 countries, we provide exceptional levels of expertise in delivering leading-edge and innovative cross-sector sustainable products and solutions. Every day, we enable our customers to solve the most complex and dynamic challenges to help achieve a safe and sustainable world.

Energy & Environment, one of Ricardo plc’s five operating business units, is a leader in sustainability consultancy, solving complex environmental challenges through industry-leading analysis, advice and data. With more than 40 years of heritage in addressing air quality, environmental and sustainability issues, our customers value us for our deep understanding and breadth of services covering the entire value chain from evidence, policy & strategy to implementation.

Ricardo has considerable and wide-ranging experience of supporting international and bilateral development partners, the European Commission, national, subnational and local governmental bodies, and the private sector in relation to all aspects of climate adaptation planning, policy development, and implementation. This includes consideration of co-benefits and trade-offs between climate adaptation and mitigation, and links between climate adaptation, sustainable development, biodiversity, and disaster risk reduction and management.

We are currently looking for a Principal Consultant to join our Climate Adaptation Team.

Key Accountabilities

The role is a senior-level position in the Climate Action Planning and Transparency (CAPT) team. Your primary focus will be business development and project delivery regarding all aspects of national adaptation planning processes internationally beyond Europe.

• Contributing to technical leadership on climate adaptation.
• Leading, managing and contributing to complex proposals and projects where relevant to national adaptation planning processes.
• Working effectively as a team member on a range of projects and proposals and supporting the development of more junior staff.

Working with national governments around the world, including projects funded and commissioned by multilateral development banks, bilateral agencies and development partners, projects may include:

• Identifying and prioritising climate vulnerabilities, risks and adaptation options, regarding the development of national adaptation plans (NAPs), national sectoral adaptation plans, and adaptation components of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and/or Long-Term Strategies (LTSs).
• Assessing adaptation-mitigation co-benefits, including linking NAPs and NDCs and/or LTSs.
• Horizontal and vertical adaptation mainstreaming.
• Developing costed implementation plans for adaptation actions, and associated finance strategies and policy implementation plans.
• Developing monitoring and evaluation frameworks (including indicators) for adaptation policies, plans, and programmes.
• Developing Adaptation Communications.

Delivery of these projects may include occasional international travel for short periods (e.g., 1-2 weeks)

Specific tasks will be dependent on experience and interests but are likely to include:

• Bid and project leadership.
• Liaising with clients and subcontractors.
• Developing and implementing methodologies.
• Desk-based research and policy analysis.
• Organising and facilitating virtual and face-to-face stakeholder consultations, workshops, and capacity-building events; and development and quality assurance of final project outputs.

In all aspects of this role, you will work with a highly-experienced, cross-disciplinary team of consultants. You will have the opportunity to make an impact and shape projects, learning from colleagues and contributing your skills and experience. Our CAPT team has recently completed or is currently undertaking projects in many countries across Asia-Pacific, Africa and South America.

Key competencies and experience

Essential

• Higher degree in a numerate/scientific subject, or equivalent academic experience.
• Extensive international adaptation-related experience.
• Expertise in all aspects of national adaptation planning processes.
• Fluency in English.
• Experience of working in different cultural environments.
• Experience of facilitating virtual and face-to-face stakeholder consultations, workshops, and capacity-building events.
• Experience of working in a consultancy environment.
• Knowledge of international climate change policy (e.g., UNFCCC) regarding adaptation.
• Strong literacy in MS Excel, Word and PowerPoint.

Desirable

• “Thematic” expertise, e.g., nature-based solutions; resilient infrastructure; disaster risk reduction and management; or sustainable development goals.
• A good understanding of Spanish, Arabic, French and/or Portuguese.
• Literacy in other aspects of data science, including use of climate model outputs.

Skills and Behaviours

• Proactive, able to work independently and demonstrate initiative.
• A team player, able to adopt leadership and expert support roles dependent on the needs, as part of a cross-disciplinary team.
• Aptitude for using your technical knowledge creatively to address new challenges.
• Appropriate accuracy and attention to detail.
• Excellent verbal and written communication and presentation skills.
• Excellent, culturally-sensitive interpersonal skills.
• Strongly motivated to continue learning.
• Organisation and time-management skills.
• Flexibility, resilience, enthusiasm, and a strong desire to live life outside of your comfort zone.
• Willingness to travel overseas occasionally on short-term (e.g. 1-2 week) assignments.

Working here

Ricardo is an exciting and rewarding place to work and you have the opportunity to make a difference. You will work with teams of talented, dedicated, and supportive individuals. Alongside having a fantastic opportunity to develop your career with us through our broad range of projects, mentoring opportunities and a personalised approach to your learning and development. We are always keen to hear from people who have driven, ambition and a flair for innovative thinking.

Wellbeing and work life balance

We offer flexible approaches to work, whether that's working from home, being in the office, or as a hybrid worker. We're happy to discuss flexible working arrangements. Wellbeing is at the core to our culture, allowing employees to flourish and to achieve their full potential. Our People are important to us, and we take pride in our wellbeing programmes and policies that support individuals including flexible working, carers policy, mental health first aiders and readily available support through our extensive Employee Assistance programme.

Diversity, Equality and Inclusion statement

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person's potential, and we'll help you reach yours. We have an ambitious diversity, equality, and inclusion approach as explained here. We value diversity; recognising that a more diverse workforce creates a richer and more varied working environment. Diversity also drives innovation, by allowing us to offer our clients the best consultancy service that we can. As part of our commitment to engage positively and pro-actively with all our employees and ensure a culture of inclusivity, we are a recognised as a 'disability confident' employer.

Next Steps

Once you have submitted your application a member of our Recruitment Team will be in touch. Please upload your CV and covering letter in English. We are a disability confident employer, please advise the recruitment team via recruit.ee@ricardo.com if you require any adjustments to support you throughout the recruitment process.

Please be aware that the timing can vary dependent on the volume of applications that we receive for each role and in some cases, we may start to review applications prior to the closing date.