Corporate ESG Manager

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Your Role: Building Kiwa’s ESG Function, Close to the Business

As Corporate ESG Manager, you help further build Kiwa’s corporate ESG function and the ESG community around it, and keep both connected to the business. You follow what happens in ESG regulation and translate it into what it means for Kiwa in practice, you help decide which ESG topics matter most, and you make sure that what is agreed centrally actually works in the divisions and in 35+ countries. Where policies, definitions and ways of working do not exist yet, you help create them.

The corporate ESG team is built around three complementary areas: global ESG leadership and stakeholder engagement, the broader corporate ESG Strategy, Governance and approach including regulatory compliance, and ESG reporting, data and performance management. You report to the Global Head of ESG and support all three areas, with a strong focus on the second and on the ESG reporting in the third, and you act as the content sparring partner and right hand for that role. On reporting, you work side by side with the ESG Data & Reporting Specialist, who reports to the same Global Head: the Specialist owns the data and the production of the reporting, and the two of you work together on the interpretation and the communication.

You work together with the country level ESG coordinators and with management to drive the next steps in the ESG area, focusing on the agreed targets. At the same time you stay aligned with your corporate counterparts in Finance, HR, IT, E&C, Legal and Corporate Communication to drive cross-functional ESG initiatives, and you take part in the ESG Council and the CSRD SteerCo. Kiwa is a decentralized company that grows through acquisition, so not every process, responsibility or dataset is standardized yet. For this role, that is part of the appeal: there is still plenty to build.

Your Key Responsibilities:

• From Strategy into action: Help drive the ESG strategy into concrete, actionable steps that add value and keep Kiwa compliant.
• Materiality & ESG Topics: Contribute to materiality questions and help determine which ESG topics matter most for Kiwa, and where the effort should go.
• Business Connection: Connect corporate ESG activities with what happens in the countries and business divisions, identifying opportunities to align efforts, share knowledge and build on each other’s work.
• ESG Community & Country Enablement: Build and support the ESG community across Kiwa by providing training and sharing knowledge, connect local initiatives and best practices to enable cross-country learnings, and support local ESG contacts so they can meet the requirements themselves.
• Reporting & Communication: Contribute to ESG reporting and corporate communication, including internal management reporting, reporting to the Kiwa Board, and the annual Kiwa ESG Impact Report together with Corporate Communications. Align with the ESG Data & Reporting Specialist and other relevant stakeholders to connect the dots into meaningful ESG management information.
• ESG Value Proposition: Contribute to Kiwa’s broader ESG value proposition, translating ESG into practical choices and business cases.
• ESG Awareness: Drive ESG awareness across Kiwa, for example by supporting the Planet Week agenda, maintaining and developing the internal ESG website, and providing input to Kiwa’s wider ESG communications.
• Sparring Partner: Act as the content sparring partner and right hand to the Global Head of ESG, and step in on the wider ESG agenda where needed.
• Be the knowledge expert: Follow ESG developments and regulation, including CSRD and CSDDD, interpret what they mean for Kiwa in practical terms, and share that knowledge with the business where relevant.