Sustainability Specialist

Provide specialized support for policies and practices related to energy, climate change, resiliency, and the environment for internal City operations, and the community to advance the goals and objectives of the City’s sustainability initiatives.

In response to the federal Inflation Reduction Act, the Sustainability Office is seeking and has received multi-year grant funding to launch a scalable lower income home retrofit program to increase clean and energy affordability and extreme heat resiliency. This work will be accomplished using an equity lens to build workforce capacity in the energy transition, homeowner self-advocacy, and alternative finance options.

Many of the duties and responsibilities described below will be applied to this project.

Environmental Factors: Work is primarily performed in a standard office environment with some work being done outdoors with exposure to all types of weather and traffic conditions.

Physical Factors: Light physical demands; mostly desk work requiring the ability to lift and carry files and reports and frequent use of a personal computer.

Work Situation Factors: Position involves competing demands, performing multiple tasks, working to deadlines, occasional work beyond normal business hours, and responding to customer issues. Regular attendance is an essential function of this position to ensure continuity of services. Position is subject to drug testing in accordance with applicable State and Federal regulations and City of Las Cruces policies.

FIRST CONSIDERATION MAY BE GIVEN TO CURRENT CITY OF LAS CRUCES EMPLOYEES WHO MEET THE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS. Meeting or exceeding the minimum qualifications does not guarantee an invitation to participate in the process.

Full-Time;
Regular;
Exempt

This position is graded RX19.

• Identifies, monitors, and measures City government sustainability targets and metrics, and collaborates with other departments and community partners to accomplish various goals and objectives; works to implement sustainable practices that create resiliency, greenhouse gas emissions, pollution prevention, waste reduction, conservation of natural resources, energy efficient strategies, and environmentally sound purchasing policies and their relationship with equity.

• Prepares and presents various special and recurring reports to communicate strategies, progress, efficiency, and performance metrics.

• Determines, develops, and implements resiliency goals and objectives; identifies and provides measurable outputs to ensure the City can adapt to natural and human caused strain and shock; implements targeted strategies to increase the resiliency of vulnerable populations within the City.

• Coordinates, facilitates, and initiates regional, community, business, public, and private agency relationships; defines opportunities for collaborative partnerships related to economic, equity, and environmental goals for the Sustainability office and its strategic initiatives.

• Reads, understands, interprets, and applies latest research on environmental and energy matters; remains current with sustainability trends and practices; performs comprehensive analysis, synthesizes information, and makes recommendations for implementation on policy and programmatic matters.

• Performs and reviews various technical calculations and studies; prepares and evaluates graphs, tables, spreadsheets, and other data reports; reviews, maintains, and updates records in various formats, mediums, and automated systems to ensure data integrity and adherence to internal controls, practices, policies, and procedures.

• Develops and recommends current and long-range plans and policies; evaluates programs and operations to identify areas for improvement; monitors results compared to performance benchmarks and evaluates progress toward achieving goals; manages and coordinates special projects.

• Presents recommendations, technical data, policy options, trends, and progress of initiatives to management for review and potential action.

Minimum Qualifications: Bachelor’s Degree in Sustainability, Environmental Science, Energy, Urban or Land Use Planning, Architecture, Geography, Public Administration, or…