Climate Manager, Adaptation & Resilience

Job Description

The Rainforest Alliance is creating a more sustainable world by using social and market forces to protect nature and improve the lives of farmers and forest communities. To achieve our mission, we partner with diverse allies around the world to drive positive change across global supply chains and in many of our most critically important natural landscapes.

Our alliance spans 70 countries and includes farmers and forest communities, companies, governments, civil society, and millions of individuals. Together we work to protect forests and biodiversity, take action on climate, and promote the rights and improve the livelihoods of rural people.

As an international nonprofit organization with more than 30 years of experience in sustainability transformation, we understand that the social and economic well-being of rural communities is tightly connected to ecosystem health. This knowledge has shaped our rigorous programs to advance sustainable land-use and commodity production.

At the Rainforest Alliance we combat climate change, protect forests and biodiversity, promote human rights, and improve livelihoods. The enormity of the social and environmental challenges we are facing requires working together in a broad alliance. This is why we bring farmers, forest communities, companies, and consumers together to change the way the world produces, sources, and consumes.

Why

To protect nature and improve lives it’s becoming increasingly urgent that we approach the way we use our land and produce food and other products in more sustainable ways. For this to succeed we need to fundamentally change the way that businesses operate and source, and the choices we all make as consumers.

How

Our growing global alliance aims to transform our relationship with our natural resources and each other, to create a better future for people and nature together.

The Rainforest Alliance encourages diversity and inclusion across the global organization. With this commitment to diversity, we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, ages, disability and any other protected group.

Position summary:

Responsible for developing, articulating and managing the organization’s work on climate resilience and adaptation. The manager will assess the organization’s current programs, including certification, landscape-based projects, and quickly provide a clear set of adaptation and resilience strategies across our core areas of work, in close collaboration with the Lead Climate, and with the lead, Regenerative Agriculture.

The manager will be engaged in a broader effort by the organization to embed climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience measures in each of its core programmatic areas. The manager will work cross-functionally in the organization to prioritize the most impactful programmatic developments to provide succinct adaptation and resilience strategies for producers engaged in our programs within landscape-based projects and for advocacy and policy engagement.

The Manager will work cross functionally to identify the business need, assess priorities and quickly articulate adaptation and resilience strategies, in alignment with the organization’s regenerative agriculture strategy. The Manager will identify partnership opportunities to accelerate the work and impact of our efforts to provide science-based opportunities for farmers, communities and supply chain actors to implement swift, impactful adaptation and resilience measures.

Responsibilities:

• Advise and support innovative program, project, and proposal design and development for climate change adaptation and resilience in the context of landscape interventions;
• Support the implementation of field programs and projects within these areas of expertise;
• Work with Climate Lead and other colleagues including Human Rights and Livelihoods leads to more clearly define organisational position on tackling the wider impact of climate change, including on people’s livelihoods and human rights;
• Actively engage in thought leadership, advocacy, strategy development, global engagement and leadership;
• Work cross functionally within the organization to ensure programs and offerings are simplified and embedded in core areas of our work; and
• Support the Manager, Mitigation in coordinating the organization’s internal climate change community of practice, awareness raising and technical capacity building across the organization.

Qualifications:

• Relevant undergraduate degree holder and ideally MSc degree in climate adaptation/resilience, or tropical agronomy or natural resources management with a minimum of 7 years’ experience in climate change adaptation at field level;
• Experience in ecosystem-based adaptation, climate smart agriculture, regenerative agriculture, sustainable forestry, or related field; climate change mitigation experience desirable but not a must;
• Solid knowledge about agroecology and agro-ecological practices in the tropics;
• Strong project management skills;
• Understanding of certification and sustainability preferred;
• Technical experience in sustainable agriculture projects, climate risk assessment in tropical commodities, and familiar with climate risk and vulnerability assessment tools;
• Knowledge of GHG accounting in the agriculture, forest and land use sector desirable;
• Good knowledge of landscape and jurisdictional approaches;
• Strong field implementation experience, knowledge and background;
• Strong ability and experience in cross functional work across an organization
• Strong organizational skills to manage multiple priorities in a time sensitive manner
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; and
• Fluency in English; other languages – Spanish, French, Bahasa (desirable).

Salary:

Commensurate with experience.

Deadline: May 5, 2022

Notes:

Only candidates authorized to work in the locations in which we are registered will be considered

If you have any questions about the job vacancy, please contact the HR department: recruitment@ra.org

About the Organization

Our Mission: Our mission is to protect ecosystems and the people and wildlife that depend on them by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer behavior. Companies, cooperatives and landowners that participate in our programs meet rigorous standards that conserve biodiversity and provide sustainable livelihoods. Our approach: At the Rainforest Alliance, we believe that the key to ensuring long and healthy lives for people, for wildlife and for the planet is by establishing sustainable ways of working the land. In over 50 countries around the world, we are collaborating with farmers, workers, business leaders, NGO's, governments, scientists and local communities to develop and implement standards that are socially and environmentally responsible, as well as economically viable. By creatively and systematically helping to overhaul the way that crops and timber are produced and the way tourism is managed, the Rainforest Alliance, its partners and the consumers they serve are ensuring that the resources we depend on today will be here far into the future. How we do it: By connecting conservation to your life! The Rainforest Alliance Certified seal of approval makes it easy for consumers to know they are buying a product that has been grown or made sustainably. The companies who sell these products also make sure their customers know they are good neighbors in their communities, and that they take care of their workers and protect the environment. Through collaborative partnerships with businesses, nonprofit groups that work regionally, and international development organizations.