Sustainability Manager, Design & Product Development

Ralph Lauren Corporation (NYSE:

RL) is a global leader in the design, marketing and distribution of premium lifestyle products in five categories: apparel, accessories, home, fragrances, and hospitality. For more than 50 years, Ralph Lauren's reputation and distinctive image have been consistently developed across an expanding number of products, brands and international markets. The Company's brand names, which include Ralph Lauren, Ralph Lauren Collection, Ralph Lauren Purple Label, Polo Ralph Lauren, Double RL, Lauren Ralph Lauren, Polo Ralph Lauren Children, Chaps, among others, constitute one of the world's most widely recognized families of consumer brands.

At Ralph Lauren, we unite and inspire the communities within our company as well as those in which we serve by amplifying voices and perspectives to create a culture of belonging, ensuring inclusion and fairness for all. We foster a culture of inclusion through Talent, Education & Communication, Employee Groups and Celebration.

The Sustainability Manager, Design & Product Development, will be responsible for embedding preferred materials and circularity into the end-to-end product creation process—from concept through development, commercialization, and communication. This role partners closely with Design, Merchandising, Product Management/Development, Sourcing, Marketing and Communications to convert Ralph Lauren’s preferred materials and circular product creation strategy into our product portfolio and track progress against enterprise goals and commitments.

The ideal candidate combines strong product, preferred materials and standard expertise with program management rigor and a highly collaborative, influence‑driven approach.

• Partner cross‑functionally with Design, Merchandising, Product Management/Development, Sourcing, Marketing, and Communications to integrate preferred material and product opportunities into seasonal line planning, development calendars, and marketing plans—including for special projects.
• Review, analyze, and recommend preferred materials and circular product creation opportunities at key development cycle milestones, facilitating prioritization, decision making, piloting and scaled adoption through analysis of environmental impact risks and opportunities, supply chain readiness, and consumer communication implications.
• Lead meetings and strategy sessions to continue building the company’s product sustainability pipeline by setting agendas, preparing read‑outs, facilitating discussion and decision making, and documenting next steps.
• Manage product sustainability initiative tracker (inputs, ownership, status, KPIs), streamline workflows, and enable clear ongoing visibility for partners; drive tidy data practices and on‑time updates.
• Lead development, evolution and execution of the strategy for Circular Principles training (live/e‑learning, toolkits, office hours); drive adoption with key partners in design, product development, and sourcing; and provide ongoing support and refreshers.
• Identify bottlenecks to preferred materials and circular design adoption, propose pragmatic process or technical enhancements (PLM attributes, Smart Sheet automations, brief templates, checklists, gate criteria) to streamline and enable continuous improvement, and partner within the Sustainability team and cross‑functionally (e.g. with IT, data analytics) to implement those solutions.
• Interface directly and regularly with Design, Product Development and R&D teams to influence decision making, build trust, and bring opportunities to life.

• Continuously evaluate emerging environmental standards and certification schemes, as well as relevant consumer trends; synthesize implications for our portfolio and make adoption recommendations (e.g., recycled and regenerative content, packaging materials, chain of custody assurance).
• Partner cross‑functionally to ensure substantiation and documentation capabilities are in place for consumer‑facing claims, copy, or marketing assets.
• Support governance and reporting on corporate goals…