Unilever is one of the world’s leading suppliers of Food, Home and Personal Care products with sales in over 190 countries and reaching 2 billion consumers a day. Unilever has more than 400 brands found in homes around the world, including Persil, Dove, Knorr, Domestos, Hellmann’s, Lipton, Wall’s, PG Tips, Ben & Jerry’s, Marmite, Magnum and Lynx. Faced with the challenge of climate change and the need for human development, we want to move towards a world where everyone can live well and within the natural limits of the planet. That’s why our purpose is ‘to make sustainable living commonplace”.

BACKGROUND

At Unilever we make products that people love – and that make a difference.  Nutritious foods. Household care essentials. Indulgent ice creams. Refreshing teas. Luxurious shampoos. Affordable, disease-combating soaps... and many more.  In fact, we make around 400 much-loved brands. Shoppers buy them in more than 190 countries.  That means you’ll find at least one of our products in seven out of ten households on the planet. And we want every one of those products to make a positive impact on the lives of the people who buy them.  That's why our purpose is to make sustainable living commonplace, built around the three core beliefs: brands with purpose grow; companies with purpose last and people with purpose thrive.  Find out how our Unilever Sustainable Living Plan is driving long-term growth while reducing our environmental footprint and increasing our positive social impact.

Unilever is the place where you can bring your purpose to life through the work that you do, creating a better business and a better world. You will work with brands that are loved and improve the lives of our consumers and the communities around us.

We want consumers to be confident that our products are safe for them and their families, and better for the environment. The scientists at Unilever’s Safety and Environmental Assurance Centre (SEAC) play a key role in ensuring that our products are safe and our business is environmentally sustainable.  SEAC’s world-class reputation for safety (TT21C.org) & sustainability science (SS21C.org) plays a key role in Unilever achieving its purpose, by working across the business to build safety and environmental sustainability into everything we do.  We are committed to safety without animal testing and are leaders in non-animal safety science.  We strongly believe that we should #UseScienceNotAnimals.

(link: https://www.unilever.com/about/innovation/safety-and-environment/)

(BBC StoryWorks film: https://youtu.be/9qSL9_nfQu0)

JOB PURPOSE

As an Environmental Sustainability Scientist in SEAC, you will be involved in conducting research to help advance life cycle and related approaches needed to assess the environmental sustainability of business actions. This will include the development, evaluation and application of new scientific approaches, methods and models for assessing Unilever’s product portfolio in the areas of Foods, Home Care, and Beauty and Personal Care. You’ll have the opportunity to build collaborations and partnerships with relevant academic, governmental and industrial groups and to present your research at international conferences. You’ll be able to apply your sustainability expertise and life cycle thinking in support of product innovation, supply chain management, brand development and advocacy activities.

RESPONSIBILITIES

We are looking for talented and experienced environmental sustainability scientists/practitioners to join our SEAC team, working in the areas of:

Environmental sustainability assessment (GHG footprinting, LCA etc.), of new sustainable materials, technologies, formats and business models (e.g. related to the circular economy concept).

Science  development activities in the areas of LCA, footprinting methods, carbon standards or offsettingmechanisms. Strong digital capabilities to enable cutting edge approaches in this area, e.g. LCA packages, python, R, MAtlab. SAP, Blockchain.  

Regenerate nature activities including science development in the area of biodiversity and ecosystem assessments of products, portfolios and sectors, utillising expertise in the areas of ecology, earth systems sciences and natural capital accounting. Strong digital capabilities to enable cutting edge approaches in this area, e.g. python, R, MAtlab. GEE, GIS, and ability to leverage emerging Earth Observation data. 

ALL ABOUT YOU

We are looking for people with the right attitude, mindset and competencies. You’ll need to be able to work effectively and with impact in cross-disciplinary teams and in multi-cultural environments and be flexible and willing to adapt within a fast-changing business environment.

We would expect the successful candidate to:

• Have a relevant PhD or Masters, ideally with several years of industrial/consulting/post doc experience
• Have experience in the development, application and evaluation of Life Cycle Impact Assessment or footprinting methodologies and potentially associated standards, protocols, or databases.
• Understand biodiversity and ecosystem assessment approaches, ideally with some experience of developing / employing data, methods and tools for spatially resolved impact assessment e.g. GIS, InVEST, AWaRe. 
• Be able to communicate complex scientific information and rationales on environmental sustainability to individuals from other disciplines or from non-technical backgrounds as well as via publications.

If you have the following skills, that’s an added bonus but not essential:

• Broader sustainability expertise in any of the following areas: bio-based systems, agriculture, green chemistry, circular economy, industrial ecology.
• Experience of employing approaches to assess variability and uncertainty in impact assessments. 
• Experience of using Input/Output (I/O) analysis and related methods.
• Predictive modelling ideally with a focus on sustainable consumption and land system changes, e.g. understanding and experience of using Land Change models (LCM).

How you’ll work with us – our values:

• We COLLABORATE to build our networks to unlock creativity & deliver innovation
• We strive for open, honest & TRANSPARENT communication
• We take control over how, when & where we work to ensure we are HIGH PERFORMING
• Our personal, physical, mental & emotional WELLBEING always takes priority
• We EXPERIMENT & LEARN in a safe space to meet Unilever’s needs
• We are guided by our collective purpose & passion for PIONEERING new science to protect people & planet
• People come first; we are SUPPORTIVE, we embrace flexibility, jump in to help out & ask for help when we need it
• We are INCLUSIVE; every voice counts & trust, respect & kindness are part of all we do

WHAT WE OFFER

Not only do we offer a competitive salary, but also our pension scheme, an annual bonus, a free gym, a staff shop and shares. You’ll get the opportunity to work directly with our renowned and exciting brands in a flexible and agile environment. We strive to achieve a family-friendly culture and to, above all, create possibilities for all.

Diversity at Unilever is about inclusion, embracing differences, creating possibilities and growing together for better business performance. We embrace diversity in our workforce. This means giving full and fair consideration to all applicants and continuing development of all employees regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity.

Recruitment Fraud

Cyber criminals advertise fake job adverts with prestigious employers as a way of stealing information or even defrauding individuals out of money.

In the most sophisticated cases, they will set up fake websites, which have a similar address to companies like Unilever. They even conduct fake telephone interviews and then offer candidates a role with the proviso they pay a fee for background checks or to cover work visa costs.  These types of attacks are becoming more common as more people are looking for employment in the economic climate.

How is Unilever tackling this?

Many of Unilever’s recruitment sites publish a warning to candidates about recruitment fraud. The Cyber Security team also proactively scan for signs of people setting up fake Unilever sites and act to close them down.

What can I do?

If you become aware of potential recruitment fraud, spot fake Unilever recruitment adverts or fake LinkedIn profiles, report them to the IT Services Desk via Una Live Chat.

Unilever does not accept responsibility or liability for any candidates who are financially impacted by recruitment fraud. Your vigilance is key!