The Sustainability Team offers an annual internship for current or former King’s College London students. Applications for the internship are now closed for 2018, and will re-open in late summer 2019.  

The Sustainability Projects Assistant works closely with the Head of Sustainability and the Operations Sustainability Manager as a member of the Sustainability Team. The post holder will work closely with colleagues across Estates and Facilities as well as work with staff and students across the university in order to deliver the university’s sustainability objectives and to support King’s Vision 2029 Service Strategy.

As part of the Sustainability Team the role holder shares responsibility for championing sustainability and supporting the university to embed sustainability across all its activities. In particular there will be a focus on staff and student engagement- supporting the team with the ongoing delivery and development of the staff champions’ network and other staff and student engagement activities in order to achieve an increase in the pro-environmental awareness and behaviours within the university community.

This post requires a highly motivated and collaborative person who is passionate about making a difference to society and the environment.

This role allows the candidate to develop their skills and gain experience as a sustainability professional – it would suit someone who would like to pursue a career within sustainability as a practitioner or consultant.

Key responsibilities and objectives of the job:

  • Deliver the University’s staff sustainability champions programme (Green Impact) and ensure continued staff participation from across the university with support from the Head of Sustainability.
  • Coordinate staff and student engagement activities and events such as Sustainability Week, the Sustainability Awards, cycling events, Sustainability forums, and contribute as part of the sustainability team to University wide events.
  • Work closely with E&F communication team and act as the main contributor and coordinator of the sustainability communications by maintaining related internal and external communications (e.g. web pages, SharePoint, social media sites), responding to queries, writing reports and providing presentations for relevant groups etc.
  • Recruit and manage student sustainability volunteers.
  • Engage and liaise with staff, students and other sustainability and environmental related groups, to support the practical adoption and implementation of innovative ideas on campus.
  • Assist in the development and delivery of sustainability training for staff and students, e.g. new staff inductions, staff sustainability champions, departmental training, student lectures and workshops.
  • Provide project support for other sustainability projects as agreed – examples include:
    • Responsible procurement
    • Water reduction
    • Sustainable food and Fairtrade
    • Data management and analysis
    • Journey to Net Zero Carbon
    • Biodiversity
    • Education for sustainable development
    • Sustainable construction and refurbishment
    • Sustainable labs
    • Travel
    • Waste management
  • Assist with the implementation and operation of the University’s Sustainability Management System to ISO14001 standard. Support the management and maintenance of appropriate environmental monitoring systems, surveys and audit processes and their incorporation into existing systems and procedures and records.
  • Support the collation of internal and external sustainability data submissions e.g. dashboard reporting, Estate Management Record and People and Planet University League, annual environmental report.

 

Over the next academic year we will be posting profiles of alumni of the Sustainability Internship. Previous graduates of the internship have all gone on to work on issues relating to sustainability in both the private and public sector.

Justin Fisher: Community Organiser and graduate of the Next Up programme.