Associate, Project Development, Nature Based Solutions

Associate, Project Development, Nature Based Solutions

Company Overview:

About Palladium – Palladium is a global leader in the design, development and delivery of Positive Impact – the intentional creation of enduring social and economic value.  We work with governments, businesses, and investors to solve the world’s most pressing challenges. With a team of more than 3,000 employees operating in 90 plus countries and a global network of over 35,000 experts, we help improve economies, societies and, most importantly, people’s lives.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion – We welcome applications from all sections of society and actively encourage diversity to drive innovation, creativity, success and good practice. We positively welcome and seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce; and that all job applicants and employees receive equal and fair treatment regardless of their background or personal characteristics. These include: (but are not limited to) socio-economic background, age, race, gender identity, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, nationality, veteran, marital or Indigenous status.  

Should you require any adjustments or accommodations to be made due to a disability or you are a neurodivergent individual or any other circumstance, please email our team at accessibility@thepalladiumgroup.com 

Safeguarding – We define Safeguarding as “the preventative action taken by Palladium to protect our people, clients and the communities we work with from harm”. We are committed to ensuring that all children and adults who come into contact with Palladium are treated with respect and are free from abuse.  All successful candidates will be subject to an enhanced selection process including safeguarding-focused interviews and a rigorous due diligence process.

Project Overview and Role:

Palladium is hiring an Associate, Project Development into its Nature Based Solutions (NBS) platform. The Associate, Project Development will work closely with the NBS leadership on the design of commercially viable nature restoration ventures and the development of investment opportunities in natural capital. 

The NBS platform works to restore natural landscapes around the world by demonstrating that restoring nature can outperform damaging it as an economic activity. By supporting the commercialisation of underdeveloped revenue streams such as carbon, biodiversity, wider ecosystem services and non-timber forest products, these ventures and their business models hold the key to unlocking alternative livelihoods for rural communities who may otherwise rely on environmentally damaging land use practices. This role will give you the opportunity to work alongside experienced sector leaders focused on delivering sustainability outcomes by mobilising impact capital and complex project management.

Initially, this role will be focussed on our UK initiative: Revere.eco, which Palladium recently launched in partnership with the UK National Parks. The goal of this initiative is to raise the capital required to deliver £239 million of nature restoration work in National Parks by 2030. To build the right investment models to achieve this goal, we will be drawing on Palladium’s expertise in the Amazon, Indonesia and biodiversity projects around the world. All 15 of the UK’s National Parks present exciting opportunities to develop projects in peatland restoration, woodland expansion, and habitat creation.

Under Revere, Palladium and the National Parks are establishing a natural capital financing facility. The facility is designing and piloting new models for landscape restoration and income generation for land managers in the UK. We are applying a variety of frameworks to value natural capital and establish offtake agreements to trade ecosystem services, including biodiversity gain, nutrient balancing, carbon and natural flood management. This role will support the team to develop financial models for natural capital restoration that are competitive with business-as-usual land use. This position will play a core role in the natural capital facility.

For more information about our partnership on Revere, see our website.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities: 

The Associate, Project Development is an early career role focusing on delivering research, cooperating on the technical design of new NBS ventures, and developing the client and partner base of the NBS Platform.

The primary responsibilities of the Associate, Project Development, will include:

• Play a key supporting role in the design, development and delivery of new NBS ventures in the UK and across the tropics. 
• Support the design of commercially-attractive business models for NBS ventures, to ensure their long-term financial sustainability and ability to attract external investment. 
• Identification and analysis of revenue streams for NBS ventures, linked particularly to Payments for Ecosystem Services: carbon emission reductions, flood risk management, biodiversity net gain, water pollution reduction, translocation of protected species etc. 
• Support the implementation of pilot projects for key ventures to test the assumptions in their design and assess whether the costs and revenues anticipated in business plans are realistic.

• Travel to field sites across the UK and tropical landscapes in order to review progress on pilot programmes, ground truth assumptions made in project design and strengthen partnerships with delivery organisations, local authorities and landowners. 
• Support the identification, assessment and pursuit of new partnership opportunities – including but not limited to marketing, pitches, proposal development and funding applications in collaboration with relevant business development and partnership management team members.
• Design and conduct integrated ecological assessments to assess potential ecosystem services on pilot landscapes in the UK
• Facilitate the strengthening of partnerships with implementing partners, landowners, communities, authorities and investors for NBS ventures across the UK and in tropical landscapes. 
• Support the design of mechanisms to fairly allocate the financial returns and benefits of successful NBS ventures between delivery partners, landowners and communities.
• Continuously build the NBS team’s understanding of its sectors of operation through systematically monitoring news organisations and researching ecosystem stakeholders, and conducting analysis on how they interrelate. 
• Establish and maintain systems and processes for capturing research outputs and project management requirements.
• Organize strategic internal and external workshops and meetings for the platform, with view to conducting analysis with wider team.
• Support the operationalisation and growth of the NBS platform within Palladium. 

Required Qualifications:

Qualities
we are looking for in our team include:

• Commitment to fighting climate change and deforestation with the ability to convincingly articulate this commitment.
• Passion for environmental issues, ecology, private sector-led development, forestry / nature-based solutions, sustainability or supply chain management.
• Aptitude in natural capital accounting, environmental economics and financial modelling
• Ability to apply the principles of environmental economics and natural capital valuation to the practical realities of creating new nature-based solution ventures. This will involve modelling cashflow projections, testing sensitivities to key cost and revenue variables, valuing and quantifying ecosystem services, and preparing investment-ready plans.
• Experience in a consultancy firm, government department, research organisation, communications firm or relevant advocacy NGO.
• Policy fluency around international climate change, environmental issues, corporate commitments to change and sustainability.
• Commercial acumen and/or or sales/fundraising experience with experience of contributing to successful client proposals.
• Excellent verbal communication skills including the ability to influence and convince stakeholders.
• Professional fluency in English, including a high standard of writing, editing and proofreading.
• Knowledge of data analysis or visualisation software.

We are a
flexible employer and applicants from anywhere in the UK will be considered. We
have offices in Bristol and London, though many of our staff are home based.