Manager, Sustainability & Climate Partnerships Lead

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The Social Impact team brings together colleagues across Responsible Business, Government & Public Sector Social Value and the people engagement and partnership elements of our Sustainability agenda to drive a new social impact agenda at Deloitte. One that’s more coordinated and joined up. One that reflects the needs of our people, our clients and our society. One that makes a difference and is at the heart of everything we do.

This role sits within the Partnerships pillar of the Social Impact Team and will play a pivotal role in shaping Deloitte’s external collaboration strategy to accelerate the transition to a sustainable, equitable, and low-carbon economy. You’ll build strategic partnerships that engage people, unlock commercial growth, and catalyse system-wide change across industries and sectors. It will also work closely with, and as an extended part of, the firm’s Sustainability team.

The role requires strong/in depth understanding of climate change, excellent stakeholder management and relationship building skills and an ability to be execute the strategy, delivering tangible outcomes. This role will suit a strategic connector and systems thinker – someone who thrives at the intersection of commercial strategy, sustainability impact and cross-sector collaboration.

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Deloitte drives progress. Using our vast range of expertise, we help our clients' become leaders wherever they choose to compete. To do this, we invest in outstanding people. We build teams of future thinkers, with diverse talents and backgrounds, and empower them all to reach for and achieve more.

What brings us all together at Deloitte? It’s how we approach the thousands of decisions we make every day. How we behave, our beliefs and our attitudes. In other words: our values. Whatever we do, wherever we are in the world, we lead the way, serve with integrity, take care of each other, foster inclusion, and collaborate for measurable impact. These five shared values lead every decision we make and action we take, guiding us to deliver impact how and where it matters most.

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The Sustainability & Climate partnerships lead is an integral part of our social impact partnerships approach, reflecting the firm’s deep commitment to sustainability and climate leadership. This multifaceted role is central to how we engage externally - developing and managing strong, strategic relationships with climate focussed partners across business, government and civil society.

The role identifies opportunities for collaboration that drive measurable impact, accelerates the firm’s sustainability ambitions, and helps position Deloitte as a trusted convener and catalyst for system-wide change.

The ideal candidate will be motivated by the opportunity to drive real-world change through partnership, comfortable engaging senior stakeholders across business, government, and civil society, and skilled at turning shared purpose into tangible outcomes. They’ll bring both relationship-building finesse and commercial acumen, able to spot collaboration opportunities that deliver value for clients, partners, and the planet. A natural influencer and storyteller, they’ll enjoy mobilising people around a vision and embedding sustainability into the culture and work of the firm.

Key Responsibilities:

Partnership Strategy & Development

· Design and lead Deloitte’s partnerships strategy across climate and sustainability themes — centred around the firm’s material impact areas of Technology, Travel & Transportation and Buildings and guided by the firm’s Global and European net-zero transition plan.

· Identify, select and manage high-impact partnerships with Small, Medium sized entities (SMEs)s and other relevant industry initiatives/broader coalitions where there is strong alignment to the firm’s sustainability priorities and the UK Social Value model climate focused Model Award Criteria (MAC’s). In time consider collaborations with clients where relevant and additive.

· Work with the business to align partnership activities to support Deloitte’s commercial climate and sustainability objectives and wider business priorities.

· Support the activation and success of our European Value Chain Mitigation (VCM) and Beyond Value Chain Mitigation (BVCM) initiatives, investments and relationships.

Commercial Outcomes & Growth

· Translate partnership opportunities into tangible business value — through establishing a strong range of Social Value climate offerings (particularly where we have partnership gaps) which can be integrated into public sector bids.

· Work closely with industry and service line leaders to integrate sustainability partnership activity into core client solutions.

· Monitor and measure commercial and social impact KPIs, demonstrating how S&C partnerships deliver shared value.

Pro Bono execution

· Work with internal (and external stakeholders) to mobilise and deliver pro bono investment focused on scaling identified innovative solutions in the areas of tech hardware and Gen AI.

Driving System Change

· Participate in and/or convene cross-sector alliances that address systemic challenges such as decarbonisation, climate resilience, and inclusive economic transition.

· Represent Deloitte in forums to influence practice and drive market transformation; For example, where there are internal and external speaker opportunities to showcase impact connected to our climate partner collaborations.

· Identify innovative solutions and support them to scale; including through inclusion in Deloitte’s own supply chain and/or match-making with our clients.

People Engagement & Culture Change

· Telling the story of our S&C partnerships and their impact: build pride in what’s been collectively achieved and inspire our clients and people on what more could be done together. This could be in case studies through our Annual Review, video diaries etc

· Work with the Comms & people engagement pillar within the Social Impact team to empower client teams to bring sustainability into their everyday work and client conversations.

· Where possible leverage and drive S&C partnership initiatives that inspire Deloitte’s people to act on climate and sustainability — from awareness campaigns to employee-led innovation challenges (working with the Comms & people engagement pillar)

Other:

· Stakeholder Management: Collaborate effectively with internal stakeholders including UK Sustainability, NSE Sustainability, Client relationship and Brand/Marketing teams.

· Bringing Subject Matter Expertise: Use your knowledge of the sustainability landscape to provide strategic input to major public sector bid opportunities to strengthen Deloitte’s market positioning and impact.

· Social Value: Provide support to Social Value engagement leads on GPS client projects where there are SV commitments with climate partners (as per the central partnerships document) where projects are in delivery phase. Where there are identified gaps in climate partnership offering, in relation to requirements of the SV model, conduct a market scan to seek out suitable partners and establish SV relationship/offering which can be integrated into bids.

Connect to your skills and professional experience

Are you passionate about making an impact on the world? Able to inspire others with your enthusiasm? A team player who is willing to learn and stretch your development beyond where you thought was possible?

The successful candidate will have:

· Proven experience in partnership development and sustainability strategy (ideally within a large organisation or consultancy).

· Strong understanding of climate and sustainability policy, stakeholder ecosystems, and business transformation levers.

· Exceptional relationship-building, influencing, and communication skills — able to connect diverse partners around shared purpose and outcomes.

· Influencing skills which enable us to garner support for our sustainability efforts from a range of stakeholders.

· Knowledge in sustainability issues, particular the transition to Net Zero.

· Commercial acumen, with experience turning sustainability ambition into measurable business and societal value.

· Opportunity spotter – able to identify and leverage collaboration opportunities for maximum value.

· Strategic systems thinker with a collaborative mindset

· Proven ability to develop and execute communications strategies and plans.

· Ability to take complex messages and technical information and use that to drive engagement and buy-in from the business area overseeing the partnership.

· Strong project management skills, including planning, execution, monitoring, and evaluation.

· Skills in prioritisation and re-planning to adapt to unexpected requests.

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Collaboration is central to everything we do at Deloitte. From IT to HR, marketing and more, our teams help to support the wider business in everything they do. Bringing your individual skills and specialist knowledge, you can make a far-reaching impact. Come join us.

For a full job description, please visit our online Deloitte Careers portal.