Green Finance Officer

Full Time: 35 hours per week  

Fixed-Term: 18 months 

Closing date for applications: 16th June 2024

First interview: 28th June 2024

Second interview: 9th July 2024

About Us  

This project is funded by the Nature Networks Programme. The Heritage Fund is delivering it on behalf of the Welsh Government. 

Do you want to be part of a team leading the field in the development of private investment into nature’s recovery? 

In the past 18 months, The Wildlife Trusts have been developing new approaches to funding nature’s recovery from the private sector, utilising novel revenue approaches such as nutrient neutrality credits and the voluntary carbon market amongst others. We have developed finance mechanisms to sit alongside these revenue streams such as a philanthropic loan system. We now want to scale up this work to help The Wildlife Trusts and others to scale nature’s recovery across Wales. We need to turn policy into strong principles that allows us to develop guidelines and templates to help the Wildlife Trusts across Wales access green finance. 

We need dedicated expertise and capacity to work with Wildlife Trusts to bring this work into a coherent strategy, develop models and plans that build revenues for nature’s recovery allowing much greater investment. This post is designed to provide that expertise and capacity to work alongside those Wildlife Trust staff that are already committed to developing these programmes. 

The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts (RSWT) is the central charity which supports the federation of 46 independent Wildlife Trusts working for nature’s recovery across the UK, Alderney and the Isle of Man. The Wildlife Trusts’ vision is of a thriving natural world, with abundant wildlife and healthy natural habitats playing a valued role in addressing the climate and ecological emergencies, and everyone inspired to take action for nature’s recovery. 

Collectively, The Wildlife Trusts have more than 900,000 members, look after over 2,300 nature reserves, operate 123 visitor and education centres and own 29 working farms. The role of RSWT is to ensure a strong voice for wildlife at a UK level and to provide strategic leadership, support and development for The Wildlife Trusts. We provide shared expertise in areas such as climate change, digital fundraising, nature-based solutions, policy and safeguarding. We facilitate UK-wide communities of practice to share learning and replicate successful approaches so that together we are more than the sum of our parts. We support the individual Wildlife Trusts to be a strong force for nature in their local areas and to work together to achieve even greater impact as a collective. 

The Wildlife Trusts are on a mission to bring about a people-powered nature and climate recovery by empowering people to take meaningful action for nature, and to create an inclusive society where nature matters to everyone, everywhere. We are ambitious in our desire not just to slow, but to reverse the declines in nature. Together we have developed a bold, new collective strategy which outlines our vision and the actions we will take to restore nature over the next eight years. 

Central to our strategy are our three goals which set out what we are striving to achieve by 2030 in pursuit of our vision of a thriving natural world. Goal 1 is to put nature into recovery with abundant, diverse wildlife and natural processes creating wilder land and seascapes where people and nature thrive. Goal 2 is to inspire people to take action for nature and climate, resulting in better decision-making for the environment at both local level and across the four UK nations. And Goal 3 is to enable nature to play a central and valued role in helping to address local and global problems, such as by helping tackle climate change and supporting wellbeing and education. 

Achieving these ambitious objectives means that we must develop new ways of working which increase the scale and impact of our work. Therefore, we have embarked on a programme of strategic transformations that are essential to achieving our goals, and which will result in a stronger and more effective Wildlife Trust movement for the long term. RSWT is leading the transformation programme across The Wildlife Trusts including in community organising, equality, diversity and inclusion, and funding nature’s recovery. The Wildlife Trusts have existed for over 100 years thanks to a strong membership base and traditional fundraising activities.  

Now, to achieve the level of funding needed to reverse nature’s decline, we need to diversify and increase our income by exploring new ways of funding such as innovative finance. 

About You 

You will be from a commercial background within private, public or charitable sector. You will have an entrepreneurial approach grounded by great commercial experWience. We would expect an understanding of the green finance marketplace and that you are comfortable with legal and contract management. You will be a great communicator, with a personable style who can work with many different people across the wonderful variety of geography, business development, and activities of the Wildlife Trusts. 

You relish challenging the status quo and problem solving. This is a new and ambitious role which will evolve following your appointment so you should be excited by the flexibility and opportunities to take an innovative approach. 

The Wildlife Trusts value passion, respect, trust, integrity, pragmatic activism and strength in diversity. Whilst we are passionate in promoting our aims, we are not judgemental and are inclusive. We particularly encourage applications from people who are underrepresented within our sector, including people from minority backgrounds and people with disabilities. We are committed to creating a movement that recognises and truly values individual differences and identities. 

RSWT take our Safeguarding responsibilities extremely seriously. Please refer to the documents section to read our commitment statement 

As a Disability Confident employer, we are committed to offering an interview to anyone with a disability that meets all the essential criteria for the post. Please let us know if you require any adjustments to make our recruitment process more accessible. 

This role maybe subject to a DBS check.