Director, Agricultural & Environmental Metrics - 22040

World Wildlife Fund (WWF), one of the world’s leading conservation organizations, seeks a Director, Agricultural & Environmental Metrics.

Major Function

The Freshwater and Food team at WWF-US works to address the two biggest threats to nature: agriculture and infrastructure.  The Director serves as the leading Agricultural and Environmental Metrics expert on metrics for the WWF-US Freshwater and Food team, and as a key technical advisor to the WWF Network. The incumbent will design and implement an evidence-based and aligned approach for aggregating impact across the different initiatives within the Freshwater and Food team, which will guild strategy development and drive achieving impacts related to freshwater ecosystems and sustainable food production and consumption systems. The Director provides strategic leadership related to relevant metric instruments and data to the Freshwater and Food team to measurably assess the impact of our conservation programs to reduce or eliminate the main environmental impacts of food systems.

The incumbent will engage with various experts both within and outside WWF to stay up to speed on the latest analysis, tools, and approaches and will engage with key platforms, forums, and partners to influence and affect change in the metrics dialogue related to sustainability of food systems.  The incumbent will help define how WWF measures and tracks progress for regenerative and sustainable food systems, both row crop and pasture-based systems, as well as contribute to thought leadership related to the development and credibility of market-based mechanisms, such as voluntary carbon and ecosystem markets.  The incumbent will work across WWF to explore how performance-based metrics and methodologies can support incentivizing producers to adopt improved practices that return benefits to nature, biodiversity, climate, among other things. Management, analysis and synthesis of large data sets, to forecast threads and spot trends will be a component of this work.

This role will cover three primary areas for the Freshwater and Food team:

1. Lead and facilitate the harmonization of metrics across the Freshwater & Food team initiatives and portfolio to drive strategy and to report on our collective impact at the organization level;
2. On behalf of the Freshwater and Food team, provide thought leadership, program management, technical review, and analysis of sustainability metrics platforms and commitments especially related to agricultural supply chains and commitments from corporate actors, including bilateral corporate engagement, leadership on the Science-Based Targets for Freshwater (SBTN: FW) platform, and engagement on the Science-based Targets Initiative Forest, Land Use, and Agriculture (SBTi-FLAG) methodology development among other initiatives;
3. Support the development and implementation of high-level initiatives from the US office that aim to develop a comprehensive sustainability metrics framework to support better decision-making and better environmental practices for food production for a range of stakeholders.

Specific duties include:

• Lead Freshwater and Food monitoring and evaluation efforts including, creation of dashboards for impact forecasting, monitoring and evaluation and strategy development for the team’s portfolio, as well as performance of key corporate partners and suppliers
• Collaborate with other goal teams to develop tools, resources and interventions that deliver metrics on multiple WWF objectives (e.g., Forest, Climate, Wildlife, Oceans)
• Support the creation of a platform to coordinate across WWF network on sustainability metrics for food systems, including coordination with Food practice, documenting successes and failures of different approaches, providing leadership for high-level initiatives related to sustainability metrics, engagement with external partners and entities;
• Lead the adoption of development of robust metrics and methodologies to support WWF’s food engagement with specific focus on land and water use, greenhouse gas emissions, and biodiversity as well as other natural resource use and degradation indicators;
• Lead proposal development and outreach to support resource mobilization for metrics work related to agricultural food systems;
• Collaborate with scientists, academia, and research institutions to align around more practical and achievable means of quantifying food system impacts by the NGO and private sector communities
• Manage technical and other team members in support of metrics-related work
• Other duties as assigned by manager.

• Bachelor’s Degree and Master’s Degree (Doctorate preferred) in data science, impact assessment, ecosystem assessment and/or agriculture/food related discipline with 10 or more years of experience in quantification methodologies, life-cycle analysis, or other relevant analytical skills designed to measure the environmental impacts of food production.
• Knowledge of current metrics approaches, methodologies and platforms relevant to the sustainable food, agriculture, beverage and textile sectors, as well as, knowledge and relationships with relevant initiatives and platforms that are developing sustainability indicators to monitor the social and environmental impacts of food and agriculture.
• Technical capacity and experience in managing a global network of applied science experts and ability to connect, collaborate, and influence them is required.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills are required to translate science into practice, including effective public speaking and the ability to communicate complex issues both verbally and in written form.
• Ability to translate technical concepts and ideas into actionable recommendations, quantifiable targets and milestones. Previous experience working with producers and farm management software and tools and/or corporate engagement are highly desirable.
• Excellent project management and organizational skills; knowledge, experience and certification using project management tools a plus.
• Ability to effectively prioritize and produce high-quality work under time constraints and excellent organizational and project leadership skills.
• Excellent professional judgement and personal work ethic, a self-reflective learner who is open to growth and continuous learning opportunities through constructive feedback, support, and mentorship.
• Ability to operate with independence and under pressure, to meet deadlines and commitments; a proactive self-starter who is self-reflective, a problem-solver, and not afraid of making mistakes or engaging team members for support.
• Proven ability to work independently as well as collaboratively in a matrixed team environment.
• Fluency in English is required. Additional language skills are preferred.
• National and international travel required (up to 30%, subject to safety and COVID-19 restrictions).
• Adherence to WWF organization values and policies
• Commitment to the Freshwater & Food team’s efforts around Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI)
• Identifies and aligns with the core values of the WWF organization: Courage, Integrity, Respect & Collaboration

**Please note that this position will only be posted for 30 days. Please remit your resume at your earliest convenience.

To Apply:

• Submit cover letter and resume through our Careers Page,  Requisition #22040
• Due to the high volume of applications we are not able to respond to inquiries via phone

As an EOE/AA employer, WWF will not discriminate in its employment practices due to an applicant’s race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, marital status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, disability, or protected Veteran status. WWF values diversity and inclusion and welcomes diverse candidates to apply.