Deadline for applications: 16 February 2022

WBCSD is the premier global, CEO-led community of over 200 of the world’s leading sustainable businesses working collectively to accelerate the system transformations needed for a net-zero, nature positive, and more equitable future.

We do this by engaging executives and sustainability leaders from business and elsewhere to share practical insights on the obstacles and opportunities faced in tackling the integrated climate, nature and inequality sustainability challenge; by co-developing “how-to” CEO-guides from these insights; by providing science-based target guidance including standards and protocols; and by developing tools and platforms to help leading businesses in sustainability drive integrated actions to tackle climate, nature and inequality challenges across sectors and geographical regions.

Our member companies come from all business sectors and all major economies, representing combined revenues of more than USD 8.5 trillion and 19 million employees. Our global network of almost 70 national business councils gives our members unparalleled reach across the globe. Since 1995, WBCSD has been uniquely positioned to work with member companies along and across value chains to deliver impactful business solutions to the most challenging sustainability issues.

Together, we lead the business voice for sustainability with a vision of a world where more than nine billion people live well and within the boundaries of our planet, by 2050.

Overview

WBCSD is offering five full-time internship positions from the beginning of April to end of September 2022.

Four intern positions working on Reporting Matters

WBCSD’s Reporting Matters (RM) project is offering four intern positions to carry out a review of the sustainability, integrated or combined report of WBCSD member companies. The reports will be assessed against a pre-defined framework and the findings will be used to provide confidential scoring dashboards with analysis and anonymised peer group data to WBCSD members. They will also be used as a basis for our flagship Reporting Matters publication. One of the internships will be in collaboration with the Food & Nature team to carry out additional topic-specific research for a subset of member companies.

Key responsibilities include:

• Systematically analyze approximately 50 WBCSD member company sustainability, annual or integrated reports against a pre-defined framework;
• Identify and write up good reporting practice examples from leading companies;
• Identify trends, commonalities and good practice examples by sector and region;
• Provide editorial support and other activities to support the project team; and
• Provide support for Global Network partners implementing the framework.
• The fourth intern will analyze approximately 25 reports and help support the Food & Nature team in additional research with the balance of their time.

One intern position working on Conservation and Market Initiative

We are also offering one full-time internship position in WBCSD’s Redefining Value program to support WBCSD work on embedding nature into business practices. This internship will involve desk-based research that builds on WBCSD’s Reporting matters methodology to further analyze how food retail companies are integrating of environmental, social and governance factors into their risk management, governance and performance management approaches.

Our work program is developed in partnership with WWF and Brunswick and funded by the Conservation and Markets Initiative with the ambition of engaging companies in the food supply and retail sector so that they make progress towards delinking their operations and activities from natural resource degradation, such as deforestation and overfishing. Through this project we are developing a significant corporate engagement campaign to make the business case for resilient and nature positive enterprises, working with global professional bodies to support the integration of ESG issues into management frameworks, developing a dynamic risk assessment approach on the risk and opportunities in the food retail supply chain and consider the potential legal issues around these supply chains.

 

Key responsibilities include:

• Systematically analyze approximately 50 company disclosures to gauge level of commitment on topics to ascertain corporate approaches to the institutionalization of habitat conversion factors, incentive structures, and enterprise risk management alignment
• Support the project team on development and delivery of grant objectives through research and analysis, preparing briefings on key topics to management, developing communications materials and supporting event logistics.

 

Required competencies and qualities for all positions

• University degree in a discipline related to sustainability, development, international relations, or corporate communications – master’s degree is preferred;

• Understanding of corporate sustainability reporting, accounting and finance and assurance- Knowledge of different frameworks such as SASB, GRI and <IR> is a plus.
• Proven research, analytical and organizational skills with strong attention to detail.
• Ability and willingness to:
  • read and analyze hundreds of pages of English language text of company information and prepare reports and incorporate direct feedback from the technical lead to continue to refine analysis;

• learn and apply a pre-defined framework for evaluating sustainability reports in a collaborative atmosphere with fellow interns;
• to work independently and manage workload once the initial training phase is complete

• Fluency – both written and oral – in English;
• Good Microsoft Office Suite skills (Excel, Power Point, Word);

The intern(s) will report to each of the relevant project leads.

The positions are full-time, fixed term for a period of six months.

Candidates should be current holders of a valid Swiss/EU/UK working permit and/or Swiss, EU or UK national.

The work environment

WBCSD offers a competitive, modern, and flexible working arrangement:

• Geneva-based organization with offices in London, Amsterdam, New Delhi, Singapore, and New York City. Remote working possible in countries where WBCSD has an office. European and UK time zones preferred for this position.
• Competitive compensation and benefits
• State-of-the-art facilities and ICT-enabled working tools
• Flex-time possible
• Dynamic working atmosphere
• Open culture encouraging interaction and sharing of ideas and opinions

Please also note that WBCSD will only respond to candidates selected for the interview process.

Candidates must be available to start full time on Monday 4 April 2022.

Closing date for applications is Wednesday 16 February 2022. We will be screening and interviewing candidates at the end of the posting period. Please note that WBCSD will only respond to candidates selected for the interview process. Interviews will be held via teleconference the week commencing 21 February 2022 and will be accompanied by a pre-interview activity that should take about three hours of time to complete.

Please articulate in your cover letter which position you are most interested in.