Agriculture Sustainability Manager

Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: Holborn Store Support Centre and Home, London, EC1N 2HT
Contract type: Permanent
Business area: Food Commercial
Closing date: 13 April 2025
Requisition ID: 296346

We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. Here, everything in our stores starts out in Food Commercial. Whether it’s the product, proposition, packaging or price, or the fact that something tastes great, our team is responsible for all food items available in store, digitally and on demand. You’ll discover it’s incredibly fast-paced. People here are in it together and not afraid to take risks. They’re enthusiastic too, and their amazing leadership team is right behind them. The knowledge and experience you gain here could set you up for career moves, anywhere else in the business. So, if you’re passionate about food and just as hungry to learn, you’ll fit in perfectly.

Division/Department

Sainsburys Commercial / Technical

Location

This role can be based at either our Holborn, or Ansty Park Store Support Centre

Reporting to

Agriculture Sustainability Manager (C5)

In a nutshell

The purpose of the role is to work across Sainsbury’s Agriculture team and priority agricultural supply bases to implement applied sustainability projects and initiatives that will enable progress towards our Plan for Better commitments and enable greater resilience across our agricultural supply chains.

You will understand agricultural systems and fundamentals of applied agricultural sustainability. You will be at the forefront of identifying data-driven mechanisms to implement supply chain sustainability. You are the expert in factors that influence the sustainability of the farming system, such as carbon emissions, water, inputs, agronomic practices, drivers of waste, etc., and will be able to identify drivers of sustainability performance and proactively work with farmers, growers, and suppliers to drive improvement in these areas. You will also work with colleagues on agricultural projects to deliver a point of difference for Sainsbury’s customers.

You will use excellent communication and interpersonal skills to influence stakeholders across the supply chain to accelerate progress across our priority work streams.

What I am accountable for

• Identify opportunities to reduce carbon emissions, environmental risk, and waste in a commercially astute way.
• Identify and engage centres of excellence and collaborate on projects with a clear benefit to Sainsbury’s and our customers.
• Engage with our existing partners and suppliers e.g. Woodland Trust and Land App, to accelerate the progress towards our Better for the Planet commitments.
• Utilise your expertise in water usage in agriculture to drive best practices, constantly looking to enhance the attributes of the finished product.
• Identify and manage research and development projects that contribute to the delivery of carbon emission reduction and driving efficiency in our supply base.
• Use technology, data, and your expertise to inform your plan for the area using actionable insights to drive change.
• Utilise your knowledge of agriculture and sustainability to spot opportunities to step change the performance of the value chain, delivering a better product for customers.

What I need to know - Essential Criteria

• Degree or equivalent in Agriculture or relevant experience.
• Minimum of 2 years’ experience in an Agricultural or Agricultural Supply Chains role.
• Strong working knowledge of Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint & Word.
• Excellent written and verbal communication and presentation skills.
• Strong examples of cross-functional project working across agriculture, technical, commercial teams.
• Ability to interpret and communicate agriculture and sustainability data.

What I need to show

• Excellent self-awareness and communication with the ability to create and maintain positive relationships.
• The ability to identify opportunities delivering better products for our customers.
• Effective planning and prioritisation.
• Good judgement, drive and influence and a clear targeted personal development plan to enhance these areas.
• Demonstrate behaviours, attitudes, values and beliefs of Sainsbury's.
• Creating a positive and consistent impact with internal and external audiences.
• A flexible approach to work, including regular travel.

Our valued behaviours underpin all our roles. Some examples below for how you could demonstrate these values within the role:

• Own it – Do what you say you’ll do. Don’t walk past a problem.
• Make it Better – Improve things for your customer. Spot the opportunities to simplify.
• Be human – Walk in the shoes of your colleagues and customers. Show care and respect to everyone.

Support we will provide

• Wider Agriculture and Technical team support.
• Performance development reviews and a personal development plan.
• External technical courses on request.

We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer, so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new - whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:

Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to get 10% off at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat after 4 weeks. This increases to 15% off at Sainsbury’s every Friday and Saturday and 15% off at Argos every pay day. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 10% of salary, depending on how we perform.

Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy additional holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, pay advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well as access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an employee assistance programme.

Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.

Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).