About us

Acting to combat climate change is one of the world’s most pressing challenges. Climate Friendly was founded in 2003 as a profit-for-purpose business. Our growing team is passionate about active land management, and we are focused on finding economically viable solutions to maximise our impact on climate change. 

We are one of Australia’s largest and most experienced carbon farming project developers. This includes more than 160 projects with farmers, plantation managers, agribusiness, and Indigenous groups on carbon farming projects.

Climate Friendly has delivered over 20Mt in carbon abatement as at the end of 2020. Our immediate mission is to establish partnerships, by 2025, that will store or reduce 150Mt of CO2-e, while repairing nature and supporting reconciliation. Join our team and you will be helping to build A productive, sustainable land sector that contributes to a zero net emissions & nature positive Australia by 2050.

We have a genuinely friendly and supportive culture where everyone has a voice and opportunity to help shape our future and to fulfil our purpose.

The role

As Section Head you will lead and manage a team to lead the technical and ecological assessment of prospective land-sector carbon projects and manage the initial audits of Climate Friendly’s registered projects portfolio. The role includes supporting the ongoing implementation, development, and improvement of processes associated with developing integrated carbon projects.

Key responsibilities include:

• Recruiting, onboarding, managing, leading, training and developing team members to extend individual skills and achieve overall team and personal development objectives. 
• Triaging operational tasks across the Internal Assurance team
• Coaching team members on workload prioritisation to meet goals and deadlines
• Continuously reviewing and updating Team SOPs, technical guidelines, templates and tools to ensure they are current and fit for purpose
• Translating business Unit KPIs into KPIs for the section, develop, implement, and monitor best practices that meet the sections objectives. 
• Managing section budget and daily operations
• Proactively identifying risks and addressing roadblocks
• Developing and implementing team strategy and continual improvement
• Developing systems and processes to streamline internal assurance operations, and how they integrate with the needs of other teams across the company
• Advising teams across the business of Due Diligence processes, and process improvements within their workflows that could maximise Internal Assurance outcomes
• Senior oversight and delivery of carbon farming project due diligence, including:
• Collating and analysing information about the prospective project areas such as cadastral boundaries, historical management, planned management, and intended area where project activities will be implemented.
• Preparing due diligence proposals describing the process to estimate the amount of carbon likely to be sequestered, eligibility of the project, and possible project risks.
• Presenting due diligence proposals to an internal Technical Review Committee and responding to questions and making changes as required.
• Lodging internal requests to the legal and governance, spatial, and abatement modelling teams as required.
• Ensuring new project registration packs are prepared and coordinated in collaboration with the Legal and Governance and Project Development Teams.
• Senior oversight and delivery of initial project audits:
• Managing and supporting audit managers in the coordination of delivering audit packs to independent auditors, perform quality control processes on initial audit packs, and assisting in scheduling of initial audits.
• Report on progress of initial audit processes, including briefing senior management in the event of delays which may materially impact Climate Friendly financially.
• Tracking the progress of multiple new projects and audits in parallel through the due diligence and initial audits pipeline and coordinating inputs to progress projects through the process in a timely manner.
• Ensuring initial audits are well prepared for, proceed smoothly, and are completed with minimal requests for additional information by auditors and/ or the CER.

About you

• Qualifications/lived experience in fields related to Natural Resources, Environmental Science, Forestry, Ecology or Agriculture.  
• Experience managing a small team, including; recruitment, onboarding, leadership, coaching and maintaining a thriving team culture that lives company values
• Ability to set up systems and processes with growing needs of the business. 
• Skills in complex problem solving, staff management and customer relations. 
• Exposure to Customer Relationship Management Databases and project management tools (Asana) and/or willingness and capacity to quickly upskill in this space.   
• Capacity to travel for fieldwork, and experience working/travelling in isolated areas
• Understanding of the Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) Act and the suite of revegetation methods very beneficial, but not necessary. 
• Previous experience with Emissions Reduction Fund/Carbon Farming advantageous  
• Skilled in report writing, MS Excel, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) such as QGIS
• Very high attention to detail, or experience
• Ability to work on multiple, complex projects at the same time, which may all be at different stages of the audit cycle
• Ability to solve problems and provide strategic advice to senior management
• Expertise working with a broad range of stakeholders, including government, auditors, and technical experts
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to explain complex problems in simple language
• Self-motivated and thrives as working cohesively with others

Climate Friendly encourages people from different backgrounds to apply, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people from different cultural backgrounds and people with disabilities

Why join our team?

Our goal is to be seen as an organisation that supports wholeness, lifestyle and wellbeing whilst rewarding individual and collective performance. In addition to competitive salary and transparent career progression opportunities, our benefits include:

• Work with purpose, contributing to a productive, sustainable land sector that contributes to a zero net emissions and nature positive Australia by 2050
• A fully hybrid workplace - work to your own rhythm and balance connection and productivity
• A supportive and inclusive environment that promotes diversity
• 2 all staff events a year to connect with your friends and colleagues
• Christmas holiday - 3 days of additional leave each year
• Floating public holidays
• Gender neutral paid parental leave
• 2 days each year for training / development / study leave
• Home office setup and refresh allowance
• Company performance bonus and shared equity